In a bold shift in language and workplace philosophy, Elon Musk has declared that his artificial intelligence company, xAI, will no longer refer to employees as "researchers." Instead, all roles will carry the title "engineer," signaling a move away from academic-style job distinctions.
The announcement came in response to a now-updated job post on X by xAI employee Aditya Gupta. The original listing called for an "AI engineer and researcher - Reasoning post training." Gupta noted they were seeking talent to scale reinforcement learning systems with human feedback.
we at @xai are looking for researchers and engineers for scaling up our rl environments with user feedback and preference in the loop. apply here (or drop me a dm):https://t.co/5jwtimaFZ1
— Aditya Gupta (@ag_i_2211) July 29, 2025
Musk swiftly responded to the post, writing, "This false nomenclature of 'researcher' and 'engineer', which is a thinly-masked way of describing a two-tier engineering system, is being deleted from xAI today." He went on to declare, "There are only engineers. 'Researcher' is a relic term from academia."
This false nomenclature of “researcher” and “engineer”, which is a thinly-masked way of describing a two-tier engineering system, is being deleted from @xAI today.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2025
There are only engineers.
Researcher is a relic term from academia. https://t.co/yNZSdVXGhY
Musk doubled down on his stance, referencing SpaceX: "SpaceX does more meaningful, cutting-edge 'research' on rockets and satellites than all the academic university labs on Earth combined. But we don't use the pretentious, low-accountability term 'researcher'. We say engineer."
correction: looking for solid engineers. https://t.co/c8EcFp5LDU
— Aditya Gupta (@ag_i_2211) July 29, 2025
Shortly after Musk's statement, Gupta edited his post: "correction: looking for solid engineers."
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