Elon Musk and Mark Cuban have been going back and forth on X (formerly known as Twitter) over a slew of issues. Amongst them was the Tesla and X CEO’s disdain for “woke” culture. The duo argued on X about the importance of diversity in hiring procedures, with Musk claiming that preferring marginalized sects in hiring is actually discrimination based on color and will lead to reduced output. On the other hand, Cuban rebutted that those in power don’t want the existing structures to be dismantled to ensure that they remain in control.
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The billionaires also butted heads over Google’s AI Gemini depicting historic figures in avatars of minorities. Musk accused Gemini of being a “Woke AI”, following which Cuban responded to the criticism on the Lex Fridman Podcast recently, saying,
“Why is it that when [Gemini’s race-swapping] came out there was a big uproar, but when someone pointed out to Elon [Musk] that Grok, Elon’s AI, was woke when it answers certain questions?”
Cuban added that Musk responded to similar criticisms of Grok with, “Oh it’ll change, it’s a mistake, we’re fixing it.” However, he did not give Gemini the same benefit of the doubt for similar mistakes and complained about Google being “too woke.”
Cuban also called out Musk after his criticism led to social media users harassing Jack Krawczyk, an artificial intelligence lead at Google, prompting him to wipe his online presence. Cuban’s point about Musk’s stance about Grok’s “woke” problem is spot on. The X CEO expects patience from users as his team refines their AI, but has shown reluctance in extending the same courtesy to Google.
Elon Musk and Mark Cuban’s battle over DEI
In January, Elon Musk and Mark Cuban indulged in a war of words over the Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) movement now making waves in American workplaces. Musk called DEI “just another word of racism,” which prompted a lengthy response from Cuban.
Musk made a snarky comment and asked when he could expect “short white/Asian women on the Mavs.” Cuban responded with a link to an article where he was quoted saying he’d give WNBA star Britney Griner a chance to play for the Mavericks.
I do think that if merit for a given job is roughly the same, then the tiebreaker should be diversity (of all kinds)
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 4, 2024
The duo continued to argue before Musk conceded that he too would favor a diverse candidate if they had enough merit. They’ve argued twice and all evidence points to more wars of words between the two in the future.
