According to The Information, SpaceX carried out layoffs within its SpaceX Super Intelligence division over the past week, affecting about 60 employees who worked on the image generation service Grok Imagine. Following the layoffs, the product support team is down to a small group of specialists. The service itself remains available to users at the time of publication, though the company has not disclosed how actively it intends to continue its development. These staffing decisions signal a shift in SpaceX's internal AI priorities.
Background: Two Major Deals in Six Months
The layoffs occurred against the backdrop of a major restructuring of SpaceX's AI portfolio. In February 2026, the company completed its acquisition of xAI — the developer of the Grok model — in an all-stock transaction valuing the developer at $250 billion. Then, in August, SpaceX closed the acquisition of Anysphere, the creator of the Cursor AI coding assistant, at a $60 billion valuation. As a result, SpaceX now manages multiple AI development areas, and recent staffing decisions indicate that the main focus is shifting toward software tools.
From Image Generation to Work Tasks
Unlike image and video generators, AI coding assistants and autonomous agents are capable of performing specific work tasks: writing and fixing code, maintaining software projects, and executing multi-step operations with minimal human intervention. For enterprise customers, the value of such tools is easier to measure through time savings and productivity gains. One promising area previously reported in connection with Cursor is Grok Bot, a universal AI agent.
The OpenAI Precedent: The Trend Away from Video Generation
A similar reprioritization was previously observed at OpenAI: in March 2026, the company announced the discontinuation of its Sora video generator. Now SpaceX is cutting most of the Grok Imagine team. Both decisions indicate that even major AI developers are scaling back investments in video generation, while programming and agents are becoming a primary direction for commercial development.
What's Next for Grok Imagine
At the same time, SpaceX has not announced the shutdown of Grok Imagine; the service's future remains open-ended. For users, this means the service continues to operate, but the scale and pace of its development now depend on the small remaining team. Observers will be watching to see whether these staffing decisions evolve into a complete abandonment of the direction or if the service maintains niche yet stable support within SpaceX's broader AI portfolio.
