“It’s fantastic to have you at our developer conference,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said to Musk in a pre-recorded video conversation broadcast Monday at Microsoft’s Build conference in Seattle.
Musk last year sued Microsoft and its close business partner OpenAI in a dispute over Musk’s foundational contributions to OpenAI, which Musk helped start.
Musk now runs his own AI company, xAI, maker of Grok, a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Musk didn’t address last week’s controversy in his chat with Nadella but described honesty as the “best policy” for AI safety.
Microsoft introduces new AI coding agent Microsoft-owned GitHub also used the Seattle gathering to introduce a new AI coding “agent” to help programmers build new software.
Despite being embroiled in a legal battle with Microsoft, Elon Musk made a cordial virtual appearance at the software giant’s annual technology showcase to announce that Microsoft’s data centers will now host his Grok artificial intelligence chatbot.
During Microsoft’s Build conference in Seattle on Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recorded a video conversation with Musk, saying, “It’s great to have you at our developer conference.”.
Due to his founding contributions to OpenAI, which he helped found, Musk filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and its close business partner OpenAI last year. Musk currently operates his own artificial intelligence business, xAI, which produces Grok, a rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Earlier in Monday’s conference, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also had a live video call with Nadella.
According to Musk’s agreement, the most recent iterations of xAI’s Grok models will be housed on Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform alongside rival models from OpenAI and other businesses, such as Chinese firm DeepSeek, Facebook parent Meta Platforms, and European AI startups Mistral and Black Forest Labs.
The Grok collaboration follows xAI’s need to modify the chatbot to prevent it from incessantly bringing up South African racial politics and the topic of “white genocide” in public conversations with users of Musk’s social media platform X. The company attributed the uninvited commentary to an employee’s “unauthorized modification,” which reflected Musk’s own emphasis on the subject and was born in South Africa.
During his conversation with Nadella last week, Musk did not address the controversy, but he did characterize honesty as the “best policy” for AI safety.
“We have made mistakes and we will make mistakes, but we want to fix them as soon as possible,” Musk stated.
A protest about Gaza interrupted Nadella.
The Build conference on Monday was also the most recent Microsoft event to be disrupted by a protest against the company’s collaboration with the Israeli government. Employees who demonstrated against Microsoft events, such as the company’s 50th anniversary celebration in April, have been fired in the past.
An employee who was protesting shouted, “Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians?” during the opening minutes of Nadella’s introductory speech on Monday. Consider demonstrating how Azure powers Israeli war crimes.
As the demonstrators were led away, Nadella resumed his presentation. Microsoft admitted last week that it supplied AI services to the Israeli military during the Gaza War, but it stated that it has not yet discovered any proof that its Azure platform and AI technologies were used to target or injure Gaza residents.
An email asking for Microsoft’s response to the protest on Monday was not immediately answered.
A new AI coding agent is introduced by Microsoft.
The Seattle event was also used by Microsoft-owned GitHub to unveil a new AI coding “agent” that will assist programmers in creating new software.
The company already provides a coding assistant called Copilot, but so-called AI agents promise to be able to perform more tasks independently for users. According to Microsoft’s announcement, the updated tool is intended to handle “boring tasks” while people “focus on the interesting work,” performing best on tasks of “low-to-medium complexity” in codebases that have already undergone extensive testing.
