Steven Finch

I resigned from xAI tonight. It makes me very sad, but was the right thing to do -- and here's why. xAI told me I either had to delete the post quoted below, or face being fired. After reviewing everything and thinking a lot, I've decided that I'm not going to delete the post -- which is very clearly a harmless personal opinion. Why did they tell me to remove this opinion? Well, according to them, the reason is that I acknowledged that Grok 3... exists. I wish I was joking. I'm not. That's the reason -- the fact that I wrote "Grok 3 (TBD)" is grounds for being fired. But wait, hasn't Grok 3 been officially acknowledged by xAI? Yes. Yes it has. I'll post below the official xAI blog post talking about Grok 3, along with many public Elon posts and video where it is repeatedly acknowledged. To be clear, the post they wanted me to remove is 100% just my personal opinion. I do not know where Grok 3 will stack up against other SOTA models. Hopefully it does well, I don't know. That's why it says "opinion" and "to be determined." It will probably be pretty good at some things and imperfect at others. I didn't think this was a particularly wild opinion. Again, their official demand said that even writing "Grok 3 - TBD" is somehow "confidential information." This is absolutely absurd, since it's repeatedly been acknowledged by the company and its famous CEO. Are they mad that my clearly-labeled opinion didn't guess that the still-unreleased Grok 3 will be higher? Maybe. Probably. Again, maybe it is at the top, I genuinely don't know. That's why it says "to be determined." The specific feature of Grok I spent the majority of my time working on with a really hard-working team is very cool and I hope it works extremely well for everyone. I won't say what it is because that would be **actual** confidential information. (Maybe after it comes out.) I still hope Elon and xAI win. Yet...... It's very disappointing to me that a company and leaders who supposedly champion free speech and openness would try to fire a low-level employee over a clearly-labeled opinion that contains absolutely nothing controversial, but here we are. The entire situation has been very strange. I thought about just deleting the damn thing.... But you know, once you start caving and giving up holding mild personal opinions, the slope becomes very slippery. I'll keep my speech and dignity and get another job, or build one. Catch ya on the flip side.