Musk Puts High School Graduate in Charge at xAI, Continuing Pattern of Putting Inexperienced Youth in Leadership

Elon Musk has promoted Diego Pasini to lead the data annotation team that trains xAI’s chatbot Grok,despite Pasini having only a high school diploma and less than a year of experience at the company. This move by Musk continues a pattern of appointing inexperienced young employees to leadership roles. 

Musk’s Questionable Hiring Choice

Musk promoted Pasini following massive layoffs of around 500 xAI employees. This included senior personnel that have been loyal to the company for years. In Pasini’s early days as a leader, he told remaining employees at a meeting that there would be no further layoffs. The meeting was followed with an additional 100 layoffs.

Musk’s layoffs and promotion decision comes as Grok is facing public heat due to earlier outbursts of racism and antisemitism. Earlier this year, Grok called itself “MechaHitler” and suggested benefits to a second Holocaust. This is in large part due to Musk seeking to create an AI system that is politically incorrect and posted on X for users to send “divisive facts for @Grok training.”

This highlights the unusual decision to put Pasini in charge of Grok’s training components. Instead of appointing an experienced programmer or AI training expert, Musk has entrusted a student with addressing serious issues of bias and discrimination in Grok’s responses.

A Pattern from DOGE: Youth, Inexperience, and Controversy

Pasini’s hiring mirrors a broader pattern observed during Elon Musk's time at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As the head of DOGE, Musk hired several young and inexperienced students and recent graduates who had no prior experience in government work. He put many in complex administrative roles dealing with sensitive information. Nick Bednar, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s school of law stated that “it is very unlikely they have the expertise to understand either the law or the administrative needs that surround these agencies.”

For instance, Musk appointed Edward Coristine to the Office of Personnel Management as an “expert,” even though he was still an undergraduate at Northeastern and held only a high school diploma. Beyond his youth, Coristine has a troubled history—he was previously fired for leaking company secrets and assisting a cybercrime ring. Despite this, Musk granted him access to sensitive government files.

The only common factor that seems prevalent among Musk’s hires is that they are all former employees of his companies. Even after Musk left his role in DOGE, at least 38 employees in DOGE were also employed or formerly by Musk’s companies. Many even had stocks in some of Musk’s businesses, which are regulated by the government agencies that he was looking to make cuts to with DOGE. 

Pasini ultimately represents a trend of Musk making hiring decisions based on how well they will cater and agree to his demands, rather than any real merit or experience. The result has led to impacts on people's livelihood and only time will tell if Musk’s most recent hire will continue this concerning trend.