Yann LeCun, former Meta chief AI scientist, called Elon Musk's xAI "kind of a failure" in a Thursday CNBC interview. LeCun said Musk has trouble hiring top AI talent because "he's not behaved in very good ways toward the previous team," referring to xAI's founding team, all of whom have left. LeCun pointed to xAI leasing its data centers to competitors like Anthropic as a sign of weakness, stating Musk "rents to other people, because that's the only way he can recoup the costs." When asked if xAI could compete on the frontier of AI, LeCun replied, "No, I don't." LeCun said he was "not very positive about the prospect of xAI." XAI is now part of SpaceX, which went public last week. LeCun was more positive about Musk's other companies, saying "SpaceX is doing great stuff" and noting he owns a Tesla, though adding "Full self-driving is not full self-driving, but it's useful." SpaceX and xAI did not respond to requests for comment.