Scoble: xAI can't catch OpenAI — 300M vs 1B users until the game changes
Scobleizer · x · 2026-09-22
Robert Scoble answered why xAI, despite Musk's talent, struggles to build frontier-leading models:
- He saw this mistake inside Microsoft long ago: "we can just copy that product." No — the product is partly the users, and in AI, a lot the users.
- The numbers: OpenAI has roughly 1 billion users vs xAI's 300 million.
- xAI won't catch up until it changes the game in a noticeable way; Optimus could do it, but that's years away. Once a technology improves and gains users exponentially, starting late makes catching up extremely hard, advantages notwithstanding.
Related event: Why Can't xAI Build a Frontier Model? Users Debate(3 posts)→
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