On paper, Elon Musk’s xAI is gearing up for a big year. After being folded into Musk’s SpaceX, the Grok maker could now be involved in one of the biggest — if not the biggest — IPO in history later this year.
Despite plenty of optimism and an enormous wealth of unlocked funding, a striking number of the company’s cofounders are now jumping ship. As CNBC reports, the company lost two of its cofounders in just two days, only the latest in a growing list of executives looking for greener pastures.
“Grateful to have helped cofound at the start,” AI researcher Jimmy Ba tweeted. “And enormous thanks to Elon Musk for bringing us together on this incredible journey.”
Fellow cofounder and University of Toronto professor Tony Wu, who worked on the latest generation of Grok chatbots, exited a day earlier, posting that “it’s time for my next chapter” on Tuesday.
They join a growing list of departed cofounders since the company kicked off in 2023. Igor Babuschkin left the company in August of last year, followed by Kyle Kosic and Christian Szegedy. Greg Yang, who has been battling Lyme disease, has also decided to step back from his role to focus on his health.
As TechCrunch points out, exactly half of xAI’s founding team of 12 individuals have now resigned following Ba’s departure earlier this week.
Following the news, Musk announced that he was reorganizing xAI, which could explain at least some of the recent departures.
“As a company grows, especially as quickly as xAI, the structure must evolve just like any living organism,” Musk tweeted. “This unfortunately required parting ways with some people. We wish them well in future endeavors.”
It remains unclear who was caught up in the firings or whether the cofounders left on their own accord.
Musk said that xAI will be split up into four core areas, including Grok, “Coding,” a text-to-video product dubbed “Imagine,” and “Macrohard,” an AI agent effort with a tongue-in-cheek name aimed at competitor Microsoft.
“What matters is velocity and acceleration,” he said in a video posted to X. “If you are moving faster, you will be the leader.”
It’s a striking moment for a major exodus as the company gears up for its blockbuster IPO. X has been battling with a major crisis as deepfake pornography and child sexual abuse material (CSAM) continue to flood the platform, often created by Grok. xAI is caught up in several criminal investigations, and its Grok chatbot has been banned in several countries as a result.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers is ratcheting up pressure, calling on the company to take action to protect the public in an open letter last month.
What the company will look like after its recent merger with SpaceX remains to be seen. Beyond refocusing the company to double down on text-to-video tools and AI agents, Musk has been turning his attention to launching date centers in space, a confluence that could help explain the unusual acquisition.
With or without an edge when it comes to access to space, xAI has its work cut out to keep up. The competition is as steep as ever, and users continue to have access to several powerful AI models that aren’t tainted by CSAM scandals.
After parting ways with xAI’s cofounders, Musk is looking to grow the company.
“We are hiring aggressively,” he tweeted today. “Join xAI if the idea of mass drivers on the Moon appeals to you.”
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