Elon Musk's AI agent ambitions quietly transforming Tesla's "Digital Pillar" to the top

Latest news on Wednesday evening Beijing time shows that Elon Musk’s Tesla is advancing the development of an AI agent project. Meanwhile, the world’s richest person’s attempt to replace Microsoft’s “Big Hard” project has stalled.

Of course, Tesla’s AI agent won’t be called “Lobster,” but “Digital Optimus.”

As background, Elon Musk first publicly announced the “Big Hard” (Macrohard) project in August last year, openly challenging software giant Microsoft.

At that time, Musk stated that “Big Hard” is a fully AI-driven software company, and boldly claimed that “since software companies like Microsoft do not produce any physical hardware, in theory, AI should be able to fully simulate the entire company.”

According to insiders, “Big Hard” is considered one of the core projects of xAI, but since its public debut, it has undergone multiple leadership changes, and Musk has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the project’s progress.

It is reported that in February of this year, after two “Big Hard” executives resigned, Musk announced at a company-wide meeting that Toby Pohlen, co-founder of xAI, would be responsible for the project. Half a month later, Pohlen announced his departure from xAI.

According to the latest leaks, in recent weeks, some “Big Hard” employees have been told that part of their work will be transferred to Tesla’s Autopilot team, and some computing resources will also be reallocated.

Another memo shows that the data labeling project used for training “Big Hard” has been suspended since last month and has not yet resumed.

On the other side of the story, Tesla is developing an internal AI agent codenamed “Digital Optimus,” inspired by the company’s well-known humanoid robot in development. The goal of this product is to create an “AI agent capable of performing tasks on a computer.”

Tesla’s recruitment webpage also shows that in February, a position for an AI engineer appeared, with the core responsibilities being to develop an “AI agent that can use a computer” — capable of performing tasks such as “autonomous software interaction, code generation, and real-time decision-making.”

Meanwhile, the “Big Hard” project, which has seen over a dozen employees leave in just the past month, has no public job postings.

Although it sounds similar to the work focus of the “Big Hard” project, the two differ in technical approach. Tesla’s AI agent aims to respond to continuous streams of information, similar to how FSD processes real-time video, rather than analyzing static desktop screenshots and acting step-by-step.

In the past, Tesla and xAI have collaborated, including integrating the AI Grok into vehicles. In January this year, Tesla announced it had agreed to invest $2 billion in xAI to begin “evaluating potential AI collaboration between the two companies.”

Musk said that many tasks can indeed be completed internally at Tesla, but “if there are things that xAI can help us accelerate, why not do it? That’s also why we are pushing this investment, as part of our overall strategic plan.”

(Source: Cailian Press)