Claims that all US tech jobs will go to Indians have resurfaced on social media after Devendra Chaplot announced that he is joining SpaceX and xAI to work closely with Elon Musk and his team to build super artificial intelligence. The announcement was accompanied by a photo of him and Musk, which drew criticism from Musk for once again hiring an Indian. Social media users mocked Elon Musk for talking about preventing multiculturalism and mass immigration, then hired an Indian two minutes later. Elon Musk has been a strong advocate of the H-1B visa program, which Silicon Valley companies rely heavily on. “SpaceX and xAI combine physical and digital intelligence, led by a leader with the deepest understanding of hardware. Add to that a senior institutional culture with cutting-edge scale resources, and you have the potential to achieve something truly unique,” Chaplot wrote in a statement.“I’m excited to advance the areas I’ve been obsessed with for years, from robotics research to building artificial intelligence models on the founding teams of Mistral and TML. Both times have been extraordinary journeys with extraordinary people that have shaped my thinking about building intelligence from the ground up. I’m grateful for everything that has brought me here, and I can’t wait to get started,” the announcement added. Chaplot graduated from IIT Bombay in 2014 with a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering and a minor in Applied Statistics. He received his PhD from the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University. He worked at Samsung Electronics in South Korea. His AI work includes roles at Facebook AI Research, Mistral AI, and Thinking Machine Labs. He has received several awards for his artificial intelligence research. Given Elon’s extensive work in artificial intelligence, many social media users defended the hiring and said Elon understands talent. “To you, this guy is Indian, but to Elon, he’s talented,” one person wrote in response to the hateful post. “He is from IIT Bombay, you know how to get into that college, you have passed two of the toughest exams in the world: jee main and jee advance, 1.3 million students take these exams every year and IIT Bombay only has 1300 seats and they study 10 hours a day,” another netizen said of Chaplot. A third wrote: “It’s all about hiring the best people for their exceptional abilities, regardless of their origins.”
