Elon Musk’s xAI company has ordered employees to download a productivity-tracking program onto their computers, drawing criticism and leading to the firing of one employee.
Elon Musk’s xAI company has ordered employees to download a productivity-tracking program onto their computers, drawing criticism and leading to the firing of one employee.
As Business Insider reports, citing internal company documents and correspondence in a work chat in Slack, in early July, xAI told employees training the Grok chatbot that they had to download an HR system called Hubstaff.
They were told to download the software to their personal computers by July 11 if they did not have company-issued devices. They were told to allow access to screenshots and were also told that using the software was mandatory.
xAI later relaxed the requirements, saying that employees who requested company computers could wait to download the software until they received a company-issued laptop. xAI said it would only use the system to monitor URL and application visits during designated work hours. According to the website, Hubstaff can also track mouse movements and keystrokes.
xAI also reported that this software will be used to evaluate employee performance and collect data on how AI tutors conduct research.
Some employees have reportedly expressed concerns about the software’s privacy. One employee said he would resign over the implementation of Hubstaff, according to a Slack post that received dozens of responses that appeared to support the post. In the post, the employee wrote that it was «surveillance disguised as productivity» and «manipulation disguised as culture.»
Employees who expressed concerns about data privacy on their personal computers were offered the option of either purchasing a new computer using xAI’s $50 monthly tech stipend or creating a separate login and profile on their device to separate work from leisure browsing.
Recall that last week, xAI held a presentation of new artificial intelligence models Grok 4 and Grok 4 Heavy. The latter is the company’s «multi-agent version» that offers increased performance. The head of the company Elon Musk claims that Grok 4 Heavy creates several agents that work on a problem simultaneously, and then they all compare their work «like a research team» to find the best answer.
