Elon Musk’s Macrohard AI project could ‘simulate Microsoft’s operations’

“It’s a tongue-in-cheek name, but the project is very real!” Musk explained in an X post on the topic. “In principle, given that software companies like Microsoft do not themselves manufacture any physical hardware, it should be possible to simulate them entirely with AI,” he added.

Musk is confident such a venture will work become Microsoft (and similar companies) don’t actually make hardware. So, in theory, a purely AI-powered alternative could provide a similar service using only AI agents.

According to reports, Macrohard could make use of Grok (xAI’s chatbot) to spawn specialized AI agents tailored for tasks like coding, image/video generation, text, speech, testing, etc. Other innovations could include virtual user agents that simulate human users interacting with software in virtual machines until the product is polished.

“We are creating a multi-agent AI software company @xAI, where @Grok spawns hundreds of specialized coding and image/video generation/understanding agents all working together and then emulates humans interacting with the software in virtual machines until the result is excellent,” Musk tweeted back in July.

“This is a macro challenge and a hard problem with stiff competition! Can you guess the name of this company?” he added at the time.

Musk appears to be very serious about the announcement, with news emerging that the company name has already been registered as a trademark on August 1. The trademark filing highlights some interesting details, including a wide remit for things like speech/text generation software, AI tools for designing/coding, and even AI-driven video game creation.

Beyond that, little concrete information has been released, but Macrohard could be powered by xAI’s Colossus supercomputer in Memphis, which Musk is rapidly expanding with millions of Nvidia GPUs.

To date, Microsoft has invested billions into OpenAI and integrated AI into Windows and Office. To this end, Musk, who’s been critical of OpenAI and Bill Gates, is positioning Macrohard as a direct competitor.

Musk has been joking/teasing about “Macrohard >> Microsoft” since at least 2021, but only now has filed trademarks and announced it as real. Macrohard fits Musk’s broader play, too.

He increasingly frames Tesla as an “AI robotics company,” is pushing humanoid robots and robotaxis, and now wants to attack software giants directly. Whatever the future of Macrohard has in store, it is clear Musk wants to see if AI can replace entire software companies.

To this end, it would not just automate parts of coding, but actually replicate the whole pipeline (engineering, management, QA, even user testing). In other words, Macrohard would act as the experimental “all-AI company.”

It’s a high-risk, high-ambition move, but if it works, it challenges Microsoft (and others like Google) at their core.