‘Much like Apple’: Elon Musk’s “Macrohard” project will take a leaf out of Cupertino’s book as it takes on Microsoft – outsource the physical, produce the intangible

• Musk announces “Macrohard” to connect xAI’s software vision with outsourced manufacturing
• Project merges AI platform development with Apple-style design and Microsoft-like licensing
• Macrohard will expand xAI’s reach beyond AI models into wider computing platforms

Elon Musk has announced an ambitious new software and platform project ‘hilariously’ called “Macrohard”.

In a post on X, Musk described the plan, which will be housed within his AI company xAI, as being “profoundly impactful at an immense scale.”

But what is Macrohard? Essentially it seems to be an AI-driven project which will develop a range of products that will be manufactured by external partners.

Taking on Microsoft

“Our goal,’ Musk said, “is to create a company that can do anything short of manufacturing physical objects directly, but will be able to do so indirectly, much like Apple^[1] has other companies manufacture their phones.”

Newsweek^[2] notes the project’s framing indicates a potential challenge to Microsoft^[3]’s long-standing platform model.

One commentator on X asked Grok what Macrohard was, and was told by the AI: “The name is a playful pun on “Microsoft,” implying a “macro” (large-scale) and “hard” (challenging) approach to AI-driven software development. Musk described it as an effort to simulate an entire software company using AI agents, without manufacturing physical hardware – much like how Microsoft outsources hardware production.”

Rather than building devices itself, xAI would set standards, license software, and define system requirements for other companies to use.

This approach would align xAI’s ecosystem with Apple’s design-led model while also reflecting Microsoft’s Windows licensing strategy.

Newsweek adds that so far there haven’t been many external job listings connected to Macrohard, suggesting that most of the project work will be handled internally by xAI employees and AI agents capable of writing and improving production-quality software.

The infrastructure behind the project will be supported by Colossus^[4], xAI’s supercomputer. The image of the Macrohard logo Musk shared on X (that you can see at the top of the page) was painted on the roof of the Colossus II supercomputer cluster in Memphis, Tennessee.

Project details are few and far between right now, but it’s fair to assume Musk is looking to expand xAI beyond AI models and into wider computing areas.

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