Grok · Grok Imagine · 14 Nov 2026

SpaceX reportedly cut most of the Grok Imagine team, a week after Starlink asked fans to make an ad with it

About 60 people who worked on Grok Imagine, the image and video tool in Grok, were laid off in the past week, The Information reported on Friday, leaving "only a handful of employees" to keep it running. This is a report based on unnamed sources. As of Saturday 14 Nov 2026, 9:30 a.m. ET, SpaceX, its AI group and Elon Musk had not commented. The timing is odd: Starlink launched a Grok Imagine ad contest seven days earlier, and Musk's promised Odyssey movie is due by the end of the year.

From Alex RGrok · News & analysis

Updated 15 Nov 2026

Update, 15 Nov 2026: Image and video creation is now live in the main Grok chat — see the Dispatch piece.

The editor holds Tesla and SpaceX shares. Supercharged Daily is independent and not affiliated with either company. Nothing here is financial advice.

What was reported

The Information's story, by Aaron Tilley, Claudia Chong and Juro Osawa, went up at 9:00 a.m. ET on Friday, Nov 13 (6:00 a.m. PT). Its public summary says the SpaceX Super Intelligence group "has axed most of the team behind Grok Imagine," with around 60 people laid off in the past week, "leaving only a handful of employees" to keep it running, according to people familiar with the situation. The article is paywalled. According to Investing.com's write-up, the reporting says the group is now putting its resources into AI coding tools and Grok Bot, and that Grok Imagine is still available to users.

I checked the official accounts on X from Friday morning through 9:30 a.m. ET on Saturday, Nov 14. Musk, @imagine and the SpaceX accounts had posted nothing about the report. Until someone on the record confirms it, treat the 60 figure and the "handful" left as reported.

Seven days, then the cut

On 6 Nov, Starlink asked people to "dream up a Starlink ad with Grok Imagine" and post it on X for a chance to be "featured by Starlink during the big game." Grok Imagine's own account quoted it eight minutes later: "been waiting my whole life to be in a commercial." That is still the last post on the @imagine account, as of 14 Nov 2026, 9:30 a.m. ET. If The Information's "past week" is right, the layoffs started around the time those posts went up.

The contest also says nothing about who judges the entries or when. A Starlink contest page exists, but it would not load without JavaScript when I tried it, so I can't quote its rules.

From "doubling down" to a maintenance crew

Musk set the expectations himself. At 2:37 a.m. ET on 25 Mar 2026 (11:37 p.m. PT on 24 Mar), he posted:

The Information's story came 233 days later. By the company's own numbers, people used the tool a lot. SpaceX's final IPO prospectus, dated 11 Jun 2026 and filed with the SEC on 12 Jun 2026, says Imagine "produced approximately 10 billion images and over 2 billion videos per month, on average, for the quarter ending March 31, 2026." The same filing caps current clips at 15 seconds at 720p.

Volume isn't quality, though. Korea's AI Times, citing The Information, says Artificial Analysis ranked Grok Imagine Video 1.5, released in June, 17th for image-to-video and 16th for text-to-video. I have not independently checked that ranking table. SpaceX hasn't published what Imagine costs to run or what it earns, and it hasn't said why it made the cuts, so the reason is still a guess.

What happens to the Odyssey?

This is the pledge I'd watch. On 21 Jul, Musk said Grok Imagine would make a full-length, historically accurate Odyssey movie "before this year ends." Episode 1 came out on 23 Oct and has passed 8 million views. I covered it here.

Four days later, at 6:50 p.m. ET on 27 Oct (3:50 p.m. PT), @imagine said it was "building the Odyssey episodes in public with a small crew of creatives." No Episode 2 has been posted on @imagine since, and there are 47 days left in 2026. A small crew of creatives can keep making episodes on a tool that gets no updates. But a full film by 31 Dec looked hard before the report, and it's harder now. Nobody has withdrawn the pledge, so I'm counting it as open until 31 Dec.

Where this leaves Imagine

My read as a shareholder: moving people to coding tools and Grok Bot makes sense if those bring in more money per GPU than 15-second clips do. Still, telling fans to make your big-game ad with a tool while reportedly letting most of its team go is a messaging problem, and the company should explain it. I'll update this page if SpaceX, Musk or @imagine responds, or if Episode 2 shows up. Would you keep using Imagine if it stops getting updates?

— Alex R

Sources: The Information (Nov 13, 2026, paywalled) and its public summary; Investing.com (Nov 13); AI Times (Nov 14); SpaceX 424(b)(4) prospectus (dated Jun 11, filed Jun 12, 2026); @Starlink, @imagine (Nov 6), @imagine (Oct 27), @imagine (Oct 23) and @elonmusk (Mar 25) on X; Musk's Odyssey pledge is @elonmusk (21 Jul). Day counts are my own math. Video in the embeds belongs to Starlink and Grok Imagine. Hero photo: Jenny Hautmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.