Cline's AI head Nik Pash faced criticism for commenting, "Imagine the smell," on a pic of xAI's hackathon, which showed many Indian-origin coders. "Please don't be racist," a user replied, while another said, "Hesitate a little." Following backlash, Cline's South Asian-origin CEO Saoud Rizwan said, "Cline was started at a hackathon which...was quite smelly...This [post] was taken the wrong way."