Elon Musk announced a new AI software company named Macrohard, aiming to compete with Microsoft. Musk believes AI can fully simulate software companies that don’t produce hardware, and xAI has already filed a related patent application.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Friday announced the creation of a new company called Macrohard to take on Microsoft’s software business while leveraging the power of AI. Announced on X aka Twitter, Musk revealed that Macrohard is no joke. It will function as a purely AI software company, and will operate alongside his existing AI enterprise, xAI. Musk claims that it should be possible to completely rebuild physical components using artificial intelligence because established software behemoths like Microsoft do not produce them themselves.
“It’s a tongue-in-cheek name, but the project is very real!” Musk said in a post on X verifying the existence of Macrohard. “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.
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According to media sources, on August 1, Musk’s xAI submitted an application for the “Macrohard” patent to the USPTO. “Downloadable computer software for the artificial production of human speech and text” and “downloadable computer software for designing, coding, running, and playing video games using artificial intelligence” are among the AI-focused services listed in xAI’s application that Macrohard may offer.
Elon Musk and Satya Nadella’s Relation
Over the past few years, Musk’s relationship with Microsoft and its CEO, Satya Nadella, has been tense at times. He has, on the one hand, included Microsoft in his complaint against OpenAI, alleging that the company has violated its founding principles in favour of a profit-driven agenda. However, when Grok 3 models were released on Microsoft’s Azure AI platform in May, Musk and Nadella engaged in a public discussion.
Musk also recently warned Microsoft about OpenAI ‘eating’ it alive, to which Nadella responded in his classic diplomatic style. Musk has been trying to show off the capabilities of his Grok 5 model, which is expected to be released by the end of the year, while maintaining that Grok 4 is still a far better AI model than the others. Microsoft, however, has mostly relied on OpenAI’s AI models to power its Copilot-based services across a variety of platforms, including Windows, GitHub, and the web.