Musk seeks engineers and physicists after OpenAI setback

In an X post dated May 21, 2026, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX is currently hiring top-notch engineers and physicists to join its new integrated AI division, SpaceXAI. 

The hiring message specifically encouraged candidates who have never worked in artificial intelligence but can demonstrate outstanding talent in about 3 bullet points.

Musk further stated that making “a very complex thing do useful work” would be considered “an absolute plus”. In another post, Elon Musk said that he would personally read all emails that passed the “sanity test”.

SpaceXAI’s new hires move to improve AI in Musk’s companies

According to reports, SpaceXAI’s focus will be on leveraging machine learning to solve practical problems related to rockets, spacecraft, and the company’s Starlink constellation of satellites. Some of the problems the team will be expected to solve include analyzing telemetry from Falcon 9 launches and Starship flights, optimizing pathfinding for several thousand Starlink satellites, and maintaining low-Earth-orbit hardware. 

Salaries for jobs with titles like AI Software Engineer at SpaceX have been pegged at $120,000-$170,000 per year, plus bonuses and equity. There are hundreds of other jobs at SpaceX right now.

SpaceX is actively hiring world-class engineers/physicists for SpaceXAI, even if you have zero prior experience in AI. Smart humans figure it out fast.

Please send an email with ~3 bullet points demonstrating evidence of exceptional ability to ai_eng@spacex.com.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 21, 2026

The job qualifications are based on the candidate’s raw ability to solve problems, rather than traditional qualifications. Preference will be given to those with experience in computer science, data science, engineering, mathematics, and physics. Even people who do not have a traditional degree but have professional experience with coding and AI will be considered.

Musk said applicants do not need prior experience in artificial intelligence or aerospace. This is similar to the way Musk has recruited in the past, including Tesla’s AI chip drive in January 2026, when applicants were asked to send three bullet points describing their most difficult technical problems.

SpaceX lists hundreds of open technical jobs on its careers page, suggesting that the drive to hire AI staff is part of a wider push to attract talent. The initiative leverages proprietary datasets from high-volume operations—one launch per week on average—to create operational efficiencies that competitors like Rocket Lab or Blue Origin cannot match at the same scale. 

New hires come amid IPO preparations and tough talent competition

The hiring drive is part of the integration that took place in February 2026 following SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI into the company as SpaceXAI. In March, after some founders resigned from xAI, Musk reviewed old interviews.

As reported by Cryptopolitan, this latest push comes as SpaceX submits its S-1 registration papers on May 20, 2026, before the upcoming initial public offering of June that will raise funds ranging from $75 to $85 billion and value the firm at anywhere from $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, making this the largest ever initial public offering in history. 

This further inflames the technology hiring wars, in which companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic pay much better for their top machine-learning hires. 

Andrej Karpathy, who was the AI director at Tesla and a founding member of OpenAI, announced his move to join Anthropic on May 20, underscoring the challenges that the firms owned by Musk face.

SpaceX joins hands with Anthropic

Elon Musk mentioned in a tweet on May 20, 2026, that SpaceX has already been working to provide substantial AI computational capabilities through a collaboration with Anthropic. On X, Musk emphasized that “this collaboration demonstrates SpaceX’s ability to provide AI computation “at scale, while also mentioning that discussions with other companies about the possibility of extending this service were currently ongoing. 

As the recently expanded partnership with @AnthropicAI demonstrates, @SpaceX is offering AI compute as a service at significant scale.

We are in discussions with other companies to do the same.

Over time, especially with orbital data centers, we expect to serve AI at extremely…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 20, 2026

Future plans include developing orbital data centers, as SpaceX intends to provide “AI computation at very high scale” when they go live.

As reported by Cryptopolitan, Anthropic’s latest hire builds on a string of high-profile additions. In early May 2026, the firm hired Ross Nordeen, a co-founder of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence firm xAI, and Chris Rohlf, a cybersecurity expert from Meta, to join its red team.

This recruitment is taking place amid an agreement that Anthropic reached with SpaceX to use compute resources from the Colossus data center owned by xAI in Memphis, Tennessee.

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