Devendra Singh Chaplot, an Indian AI researcher and robotics expert, announced on Saturday, March 14, that he was joining SpaceX and xAI to work directly under Elon Musk.In an X post, Chaplot revealed that he’d work closely with Musk and the team to develop superintelligence, aiming to combine “physical and digital intelligence”.
“I’m joining SpaceX and xAI, working closely with Elon and team to build superintelligence. Together, SpaceX and xAI combine physical and digital intelligence under a leader who understands hardware at the deepest level. Add a high-agency culture with frontier-scale resources, and you get the possibility to achieve something truly unique,” he wrote.
I’m joining SpaceX and xAI, working closely with Elon and team to build superintelligence.
Together SpaceX and xAI combine physical and digital intelligence under a leader who understands hardware at the deepest level. Add a high-agency culture with frontier-scale resources, and… pic.twitter.com/tjaPUjGUwK— Devendra Chaplot (@dchaplot) March 13, 2026He shared his excitement about advancing the fields he has been passionate about for years, ranging from his early work in robotics research to his time developing AI models as a founding member of Mistral and TML.“I’m excited to advance the fields I’ve obsessed over for years, from robotics research to building AI models on the founding teams of Mistral and TML. Both were extraordinary journeys with extraordinary people that shaped how I think about building intelligence from the ground up,” he added.Expressing gratitude for the experiences that led him to this point, he added that he is eager to begin this next chapter. The techie concluded, “Grateful for everything that brought me here and can’t wait to get started.”xAI boss Elon Musk reposted Devendra Chaplot’s post and welcomed him to the team. “Welcome to @xAI!” he tweeted.
Welcome to @xAI!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 13, 2026The move follows a major corporate restructuring in February, where SpaceX acquired xAI to unify Musk’s AI and space ambitions.Who is Devendra Singh Chaplot?An IIT Bombay alumnus with a PhD in Machine Learning from Carnegie Mellon University, Devendra Singh Chaplot was a founding member of one of the leading AI organisations, including Mistral AI.He was a Research Scientist at Mistral AI, where he worked on developing the next generation of AI models.ALSO READ | Elon Musk’s SpaceX weighs Nasdaq listing: reportChaplot’s journey to becoming a prominent person in the global technology business began with outstanding academic achievements in India.In 2010, he received an All India Rank 25 in the IIT-JEE and an International Rank 5 in the International Mathematics Olympiad.According to his LinkedIn profile, he previously worked as a Research Scientist at the Facebook AI Research (FAIR) Lab, where he focused on Machine Learning, Computer Vision, and Robotics.Chaplot oversaw the design of many AI systems that won the CVPR-2019 PointNav and CVPR-2020 ObjectNav, NeurIPS-2022 Rearrangement Habitat Challenges and the Visual-Doom AI Competition 2017. He is a Facebook Fellowship Award recipient, and his research has won Best Paper and Best Demo prizes at major AI conferences.He also served at Samsung Electronics HQ in South Korea for about a year. He has been featured prominently in major media outlets such as MIT Technology Review, TechCrunch, and Popular Science.
