Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Friday announced the creation of a new company called Macrohard to take on Microsoft’s software business while leveraging the power of AI.
In a post on X confirming the existence of Macrohard, Musk wrote, “It’s a tongue-in-cheek name, but the project is very real!”
“In principle, given that software companies like Microsoft do not themselves manufacture any physical hardware, it should be possible to simulate them entirely with AI,” he added.
Media reports revealed that Musk’s xAI had filed for the ‘Macrohard’ patent at the United States Patent and Trademark Office on 1 August. xAI’s application lists a number of AI-focused services that Macrohard could provide, including “downloadable computer software for the artificial production of human speech and text” and “downloadable computer software for designing, coding, running, and playing video games using artificial intelligence.”
In a post on X last month, Musk had said that xAI’s latest AI software company would spawn “hundreds of specialized coding and image/video generation/understanding agents all working together and then emulate humans interacting with the software in virtual machines until the result is excellent.”
“This is a macro challenge and a hard problem with stiff competition! Can you guess the name of this company?” he added.
Musk has had a blow hot-blow cold relationship with Microsoft and its CEO Satya Nadella over the past few years. On the one hand, he has dragged Microsoft into his lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming the ChatGPT maker has breached its foundation mission in favor of a profit-seeking motive. On the other hand, Musk and Nadella had a public conversation in May when Grok 3 models were made available on Microsoft’s Azure AI platform.
Musk also recently warned Microsoft about OpenAI ‘eating’ it alive, to which Nadella responded in his classic diplomatic style. Musk has been on a mission to tease the potential of his Grok 5 model (said to launch by year-end) while claiming that Grok 4 is still a much superior AI model than the competition. Meanwhile, Microsoft has largely been reliant on OpenAI’s AI models to power its Copilot-based features on the web, GitHub, and Windows, among other platforms
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