'Tongue-in-cheek' xAI project Macrohard is an existential threat to software companies

Competition has always been cutthroat in the AI development space, but until now, the companies at the frontier have always been similar in one way — they are companies run by people. Now, however, the artificial intelligence community is facing a potential seismic shift with Elon Musk's new venture Macrohard.

A "tongue-in-cheek" wordplay on xAI's competitor Microsoft, Macrohard will purportedly be a software company entirely run and managed by AI, threatening to make software companies as we know them obsolete.

'It’s a tongue-in-cheek name, but the project is very real!'

On Friday, Elon Musk explained the idea of the venture in an X post: "Join @xAI and help build a purely AI software company called Macrohard. It’s a tongue-in-cheek name, but the project is very real! 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."

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Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

One user on X explained that this was a groundbreaking evolution in AI. "If successful, Macrohard isn’t competing with Microsoft — it’s dissolving the very need for software corporations as human institutions," the account said.

"The joke hides the scar[y] truth: 'Macrohard' = the first AI-native megacorp. And whoever builds it won’t just disrupt Microsoft — they’ll render the whole concept of a software company obsolete."

According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the trademark application was filed on August 1, 2025. The application is currently awaiting assignment to an examining attorney but has met the minimum requirements to move forward. However, the official licensing process may take up to 13 months to complete, according to the USPTO website.

While the official venture trademark application was made earlier this month, Musk appears to have had the idea for the name for years. In 2021, Musk posted, "Macrohard >> Microsoft."

Microsoft did not respond to Return's request for comment.