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Indian origin techie overcomes racist trolling, joins xAI
Sendilaraj was mocked after an image of him drinking water during an xAI hackathon was circulated online.
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Jeffin T. Kaleekal - Fri, 19, Dec 2025
- 00:48 EST
- 21
Vineeth Sendilraj / Vineeth Sendilraj via X
Vineeth Sendilraj, a 19-year-old Indian-origin computer science student at Georgia Tech, has overcome the racist rhetoric targeting him and cemented his place at Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI as an engineer.
Sendilraj was previously trolled extensively after visuals of him drinking water was circulated with troubling racist conversations surrpunding it. The visuals were part of an image of xAI’s December 2025 hackathon, with Sendilraj and many other engineers.
A full audience of hardcore builders and engineers at the @xai hackathon! pic.twitter.com/5ylX2C2R6c
— Taylor (@taycaldwell) December 7, 2025
After winning the competition and getting selected to the xAI team, he said on X, "week ago I got clipped for drinking water. now I'm joining @xai to build the future of AI. full circle moment."
1 week ago I got clipped for drinking water.
— Vineeth Sendilraj (@VineethSendil) December 17, 2025
now I'm joining @xai to build the future of AI.
full circle moment. https://t.co/qF62WooTSJ pic.twitter.com/KXeVadujgb
The original image also attracted troubling comments, with internet trolls describing the room as "full of Indians" and posting captions like, "I know it smell crazy in there."
The issue escalated after Nik Pash, the head of AI at Cline was fired after he reposted an image of the hackathon and said, "imagine the smell." A comment he later attributed to the general smell of hackathons and not a comment on any community.
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