Does it disrupt the market? Elon Musk’s new software company is the opposite of Microsoft
Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, has a new software company. And, true to his style, he gave it a name that only someone trapped in a 54-year-old body could enjoy.
The name is Macrohard, a wordplay with Microsoft. Musk knows it’s an immature joke with sexual connotations, but that kind of humor never stopped him before from raising billions of dollars.
## The Wordplay and Musk’s Promotion
“Join and help build a purely AI software company called Macrohard. It’s a tongue-in-cheek name, but the project is very real!” the billionaire tweeted. “In principle, given that software companies like Microsoft do not themselves manufacture any physical hardware, it should be possible to simulate…”
It’s not clear what Musk meant by insisting that Microsoft doesn’t manufacture hardware. Microsoft has products like Surface and Xbox, which the company designs and oversees production through partners.
It’s also strange to claim that any software company could be simulated “with AI.” A user who replied to Musk’s tweet threw: “Does this mean that all software companies – including xAI – are at risk of being completely replaced?”
## Potential Legal Issues
The theory seems to be that, with the rise of AI, one could program anything, no matter how complex, and generate software practically for free. But even if that were possible (and it’s not, as AI still needs human supervision to debug errors), huge intellectual property problems would arise.
According to records from the , xAI filed a trademark application for Macrohard on August 1st. Musk had hinted at the name in a tweet on July 13.
“We are creating a multi-agent AI software company at @xAI, where @Grok generates hundreds of agents specialized in programming and image/video generation/interpretation, all working together, then emulating humans interacting with the software on virtual machines to achieve an excellent result,” Musk.
“This is a macro challenge and a difficult problem with a lot of competition! Can you guess the name of this company?” he continued, closing with a laughing emoji.
That tweet led many people to guess correctly that it would be called Macrohard, perhaps because it has been a recurring joke in the tech community. Others speculated that it would be related to video games or experimental programming, which seems quite likely, although details are still missing.
The trademark application includes video games but also aims to cover broader fields such as “legal analysis, strategic planning, and professional consulting applications.”
xAI did not immediately respond to questions sent by email on Friday. Gizmodo will update the information if a response is received.
