Elon Musk Is Poaching Wall Street Talent for Grok — Paying $100 an Hour. Here’s Why.

Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI is eager to improve its Grok chatbot and equip it with financial strategy skills. To that end, xAI is looking for bankers who are willing to join its team to help develop solutions for investment bankers and financial professionals. 

According to job postings on xAI’s website, viewed by Bloomberg, xAI is actively hiring investment bankers, portfolio managers, credit analysts and traders, asking them to join its data annotation teams to train Grok. xAI wants these professionals to teach Grok how to think about financial modeling and investing. 

One job posting asks for a finance expert to act as an AI tutor. 

“AI Tutors teach our AI models about how people interact and react, as well as how people approach issues and discussions in finance,” the job listing reads. The job requires at least a Master’s degree in a finance-related field and pays up to $100 per hour, depending on relevant experience and qualifications.  

The job description also indicates that xAI is recruiting crypto experts to teach Grok about the asset class. 

Big AI players are zeroing in on the business world, especially finance, and they are working hard to get professionals to pay for their newest software. AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic have rolled out tools designed to make tasks like market analysis and investment memo writing faster and easier. Earlier this month, OpenAI allowed users to tap into ChatGPT directly in Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets to examine financial models. 

The shift has rattled investors in older software firms like Salesforce and ServiceNow, who worry their products could soon be left behind, according to Bloomberg. 

Musk launched xAI in 2023 with the mission of building AI to “advance human comprehension and capabilities.” Since its launch, the startup has raised over $42 billion in total funding, including a $20 billion Series E funding round in January.  

Last month, xAI merged with Musk’s SpaceX to create the world’s most valuable private company, with a combined value of $1.25 trillion. 

According to Bloomberg, xAI is lagging behind its competitors in obtaining business clients. Most of the startup’s revenue has come from partnerships with Musk’s other companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, per the publication. 

xAI also had a rocky start to the year. The startup saw about a dozen staffers depart, including several of the company’s cofounders. In a post on X last week, Musk said that he was rebuilding xAI “from the foundations up,” noting that the same thing happened with Tesla. 

“xAI was not built right first time around,” he wrote. 

Musk further stated on X last week that he is reconsidering job applications for xAI that the company previously rejected. His goal is to reach out to candidates who should have had a chance to interview based on their credentials, but were previously overlooked. 

“Many talented people over the past few years were declined an offer or even an interview at xAI,” Musk wrote. “My apologies.”

xAI has roughly 5,000 employees, compared to 7,500 at OpenAI and 4,700 at Anthropic, according to LinkedIn estimates.