A viral LinkedIn post from a senior Microsoft engineer set off speculation that the company planned to replace the Windows kernel's C and C++ code with Rust using AI-driven automation. Microsoft has now denied it.
Galen Hunt, a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft, posted about his goal to "eliminate every line of C and C++ from Microsoft by 2030" using AI and algorithms. The kicker: "1 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines of code." Coming from someone at that level, the statement read less like a personal aspiration and more like company strategy. The post repeatedly used "our," which didn't help.
Frank Shaw, Microsoft's Chief Communications Officer, told Windows Latest the company has no plans to rewrite Windows 11 using AI. Hunt edited his LinkedIn post with a clarification: "Windows is NOT being rewritten in Rust with AI. My team's project is a research project." He said his intent was to recruit engineers, not announce product strategy.
The research team does exist. Hunt's group, part of Microsoft's Future of Scalable Software Engineering division, is hiring a Principal Software Engineer to help translate C and C++ systems to Rust. The job requires at least three years of systems-level Rust experience and pays between $139,900 and $274,800. Microsoft has been experimenting with using LLMs to assist code translation for a couple of years.
But there's context that made the post land differently. CEO Satya Nadella said at Meta's LlamaCon in April that as much as 30% of Microsoft's code is now written by AI. CTO Kevin Scott has predicted 95% of code will be AI-generated by 2030. When an engineer talks about AI rewriting a billion lines of code, people connect the dots.
The Bottom Line: Microsoft's Rust migration is a research project, not a product roadmap, though the company's aggressive AI coding claims make the distinction hard to parse.
QUICK FACTS
- Galen Hunt: Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft, leads Future of Scalable Software Engineering group
- Target salary range for Rust engineer role: $139,900 to $274,800
- Nadella claim: 20-30% of Microsoft code now AI-generated (April 2025, LlamaCon)
- Scott prediction: 95% AI-generated code by 2030
- Microsoft estimate: approximately 1 billion lines of C/C++ code to potentially migrate (company-reported)
