A xAI engineer Sulaiman Ghori spent over an hour praising the company’s “transparent culture,” only to be fired the next day. You can say anything inside the company, but externally, that’s another story.
(Background: X releases the original algorithm code “Phoenix”! Feeding Grok with each other, Elon Musk chooses to keep model weights secret)
(Additional context: Elon Musk online defending OpenAI: the former “biggest supporter” angrily demanded 134 billion USD, but ultimately sentiment lost to business?)

Table of Contents

• Ticket to Engineer Paradise
• When Trust Meets Boundaries
• History Always Looks Surprising Similar
• The Inner Logic of Extreme Culture
  • The Boundaries of Transparency
• The Most Ironic Footnote

“No one told me no.”

This is a phrase Sulaiman Ghori used to describe his experience working at xAI during an interview on Relentless’s Podcast. He spent over an hour detailing how free, open, and trusting the culture there is.

He said Elon Musk is willing to be proven wrong as long as you can provide experimental data. He said good ideas can be implemented and feedback received from superiors and colleagues on the same day. He said he is fundamentally an entrepreneur; in the past, working alone might have been faster, but at xAI, it’s actually faster.

These words sound like a passionate “workplace testimonial” advertising the company.

And then he was fired.

Ticket to Engineer Paradise

Let’s first review what Ghori describes as xAI.

When he joined, the company had about 100 people, fewer than 8 of whom were not engineers. Even the sales team were engineers. Elon Musk’s words were: “Engineers are engineers, no matter what they do.” On his first day, he only received a laptop and an access card, with no instructions on what to do or which team to join. He was expected to find things to do himself and prove his value.

This sounds like the epitome of Silicon Valley’s free culture.

They built the Colossus data center in 122 days.

How? By using “temporary leasing” to obtain land permits, a rule originally meant for short-term events like carnivals.

Sulaiman Ghori chuckled and said, “xAI is technically a carnival company.”

He shared an internal thinking framework: each commit is worth about 2.5 million USD. Of course, this isn’t an exact calculation but a mindset, emphasizing that every line of code you write has a high leverage effect.

When asked about deadline management, Ghori said, “The answer is always yesterday. The question is how much you can do today.”

The organizational structure has only three levels: individual contributors, co-founders or managers, and then Elon Musk.

Most managers also write code. Team boundaries are blurry; if you need to fix a problem, just do it, show it to the responsible person, and if they agree, merge and deploy immediately.

Everyone is trusted to do the right thing.

This is what Ghori loves most about xAI.

When Trust Meets Boundaries

The question is: Is there anything shameful about what Ghori said?

Building Colossus in 122 days? That’s public information, announced by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang himself.

Each commit worth 2.5 million USD? That’s an incentive mechanism, not a trade secret.

Three-layer management structure? That’s organizational design, not a technical secret.

Macro Hard’s human simulator project? Elon Musk himself mentioned this direction on X.

But he was still fired.

This is the most subtle aspect of Silicon Valley’s “transparent culture.” You can challenge any decision internally, but you can’t describe how that challenge happened externally.

You can tell Elon Musk “You’re wrong,” but you can’t tell reporters “I once told Elon Musk you’re wrong.”

You are trusted to do the right thing, but “doing the right thing” does not include giving a Podcast interview.

In Elon Musk’s companies, truth is internal currency, but circulating it externally can very likely lead to confiscation.

History Always Looks Surprising Similar

This isn’t the first time Musk has shown this attitude.

In 2022, SpaceX employees wrote an open letter criticizing Musk’s remarks on Twitter. The result?

Nine people were fired, including a senior engineer who helped draft the letter. That same year, after Musk acquired Twitter, he personally sent emails threatening employees: violating confidentiality agreements would “face legal consequences.” Ironically, that threat letter itself was leaked.

Even more extreme is Tesla’s monitoring methods. The U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled Musk’s confidentiality agreements as “overly broad,” violating labor law.

Reports indicate Tesla sends slightly different spaced emails to each employee, using small differences like one or two spaces, to track leaks. This “binary signature tracking” treats employees as variables to be monitored.

Of course, this isn’t just Musk’s problem.

In 2024, Google fired 28 employees at once for protesting the sale of technology to Israel. The “open culture” of tech companies always has an invisible red line.

But no one will tell you in advance where that line is drawn.

The Inner Logic of Extreme Culture

To understand why this happens, first understand how extreme xAI’s work culture really is.

Ghori said the Macro Hard team has been operating in “war room” mode for four months straight, meaning they are fighting a war.

The company has sleep pods and bunk beds, allowing employees to stay overnight at the office. Once, the team “upgraded” the gym, removing equipment and cramming everyone inside to keep working.

Another xAI employee, Parsa Tajik, posted on X that they had a 36-hour continuous work meeting. Colleague Ayush Jaiswal sarcastically commented, “Work-life balance is great; in fact, we recommend it to all competitors.” Elon Musk laughed and agreed below.

This culture produces astonishing results. But it also creates a special psychological contract: I give you extreme freedom and trust, you give me extreme dedication and loyalty. The implicit term of this contract is that you can say anything internally, but externally, you represent this extreme culture, not yourself.

Job site Glassdoor rates xAI’s “work-life balance” at 1.4 out of 5, but the overall rating is 4.3. This contradiction itself reveals the problem: employees know it’s tough here, but they also know it’s special. They are willing to pay the price for this uniqueness.

But the premise is that this price is voluntarily chosen, not publicly exposed.

Ghori’s mistake isn’t that he lied, but that he told too many truths.

Boundaries of Transparency

Igor Babuschkin, co-founder of xAI, recently posted: “Some months only have a few days, but some nights feel like months.” Ghori said this perfectly describes their work rhythm.

This pace isn’t sustainable for everyone. But those who choose to join are often attracted by this intensity. They don’t want the stability of 9-to-5; they want the chance to change the world, even if it means sleeping on military cots at the company.

The problem is, when you talk about this lifestyle, it no longer feels like a choice but like “exploitation.” Even if you don’t think so yourself. Even if every word you say is positive.

Ghori’s interview content is almost entirely praise. He didn’t leak technical secrets, didn’t criticize company decisions, and didn’t speak ill of colleagues. He simply described xAI’s work culture, almost like a recruitment ad.

But that’s enough.

Because he revealed the true face of “extreme culture.” Once this face is exposed to public scrutiny, it invites various interpretations—some see innovation, others see exploitation. The company loses control over the narrative.

Company culture walls say “We encourage employees to speak up,” but no one tells you where that voice should go.

The Most Ironic Footnote

“No one told me no.”

This is what Ghori loves most about xAI. He can proactively seek responsibility, live by his sword, and die by his sword. He can propose ideas, implement them on the same day, and get feedback immediately. No approval process, no cross-department meetings, no “I need to ask my supervisor” excuses.

Until he said these words.

And someone told him he couldn’t.

Perhaps this is the most ironic occurrence of Silicon Valley’s “open and transparent” culture, or the absurd contradiction of all startups.

Tech companies like to say they have transparent cultures, encouraging employees to speak out, share opinions, and challenge the status quo. xAI’s culture indeed appears so—flat organization, direct feedback, tolerance for mistakes.

But there’s an unwritten rule: transparency is internal, not external. You can speak freely on Slack, but signing a confidentiality agreement means you can’t disclose anything. You can challenge any technical decision, but you can’t publicly discuss how the company operates.

Transparency culture is for employees, not for the outside world.

Ghori’s story reminds me of an old joke: during onboarding, HR says “We encourage open communication,” then hands you a 30-page confidentiality agreement.

The difference is, some companies tell you this joke before you sign, and others let you discover the punchline yourself.

Usually, employees discover it by getting fired.

Below is Ghori’s interview video.