xAI Recruits Two Cursor Executives to Accelerate Progress in Code AI

Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg According to informed sources, Elon Musk's xAI is hiring two senior executives from Cursor to address its lag behind competitors in the field of code AI. It is reported that Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg will report directly to Musk. This recruitment follows a series of high-level departures at xAI, which included most of its co-founders. Concurrently, Musk has publicly acknowledged that the company's Grok model trails behind competing products in coding capabilities. During a conference on Wednesday, Musk stated that xAI is "currently behind in code," but he anticipates the company will "catch up and surpass competitors" by mid-2026. Milich and Ginsberg previously served as engineering product leads at Cursor and also worked as venture scouts at Sequoia Capital, where they were responsible for identifying potential investment opportunities. Cursor is a leading startup providing AI coding assistants for developers. The company was valued at nearly $300 billion in its last funding round, and as of February this year, its annual recurring revenue surged to $20 billion from $1.5 billion a year earlier. However, Cursor faces increasing competition from its AI model technology providers, including Anthropic, which launched Claude Code last year. Previously, xAI had engaged in discussions with OpenAI and Anthropic regarding licensing or acquiring data related to code written and edited by engineers using Cursor. xAI, which was acquired by SpaceX in February, has been actively building its enterprise-level business. In August last year, the company launched its dedicated code model, Grok Code Fast 1. In recent months, xAI's executive team has experienced significant turbulence. On Thursday, Business Insider reported that xAI co-founder Zihang Dai, who was responsible for code intelligence agents, had left the company. Other co-founders who departed in recent weeks include Toby Pohlen, Tony Wu, and Jimmy Ba. Of the 12 original founding members of xAI, only three, including Musk, remain with the company.