There are a number of reticent names of game companies on the Internet, especially the Chinese Internet, which has given birth to classic names such as “Polish donkey”, “carcass”, “tato factory”. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, who are the three of them, are naturally no exception: the Sony Magna Carta, Hell and Hard are passed on among the players.
However, the obvious irony is that there are only players in each other’s rooms, mostly as a joke, and that it is difficult to get to the grand hall of grace, and no one would deliberately touch the heads of these giants. However, it is clear that the technocrat Mask, who is a senior player and often has “unhumanity”, is free from this.
According to numerous media reports, the Mask-flagged artificial intelligence company XAI recently submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office an application for registration of a trademark called “MacroHard” — a name that is widely interpreted by industry as a bold and direct provocation to Microsoft.
The name “MacroHard” is a deliberate and provocative one that stands in sharp symmetrical opposition to Microsoft. “Macro” means “wide and big, as opposed to “Micro”. “Hard” (hard) is the reverse of “Soft”. This deliberate opposition to naming constitutes an ironic attack that has to be “thoughtful”. This led to speculation that Mask may have intended to rekindle the long-standing discord with the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates.
In fact, Mask had previously revealed the name “MacroHard” on social platform X. In his tweet, he suggested that a company focusing on multi-intellectual AI systems would be formed, with the core being xAI self-researched large-language model Grok. These intelligent bodies will collaborate on such professional tasks as software development and multimedia generation. In this rather tactful tweet, Musk wrote, “Guessing the company’s name?” — an ambush for what appears to be a well-planned “public announcement” today.
Leaving out the Mask-Face Microsoft filter, the “MacroHard” would mark a major breakthrough in traditional AI applications if it landed as it was conceived. XAI ‘ s vision points to a collaborative ecosystem of expert-level AI intelligence capable of responding to more complex and multidimensional objectives. This not only highlights its technological ambitions, but is a direct challenge to the current AI landscape led by Microsoft, Google and OpenAI.
The gap between Mask and Microsoft has been fermenting for many years, with early Mask openly criticizing Microsoft’s response to the epidemic, and even expressing dissatisfaction with Gates’ choice to buy the Porsche Taycan instead of Tesla.
In recent years, differences between the two sides over the direction of OpenAI and its governance structure, particularly its close relationship with Microsoft, have deepened. Although Mask was one of OpenAI’s founding elders, the clash of ideas eventually led him to withdraw and create XAI in 2023, pledging to build “a more transparent and safer technology for humanity”.
The Grok model of xAI has been integrated into the X platform as a smart assistant. If the MacroHard project is officially launched, it is likely to become more deeply integrated into the X ecosystem and is expected to develop as an integrated platform for the integration of AI assistants, content creators and developers.
To date, XAI has not issued an official declaration on the trademark application. But, given Mask’s consistent pattern of forward-looking insinuations and dramatic openings, this gunpowder-syllable “speech” is likely to be the first shot in a new age of artificial intelligence hegemonic battle, signalling an even larger and more intense pattern of competition.
