Monday night time, xAI co-founder Yuhuai (Tony) Wu introduced he was leaving the corporate. “It’s time for my subsequent chapter,” Wu wrote in a late-night publish on X. “It’s an period with full potentialities: a small staff armed with AIs can transfer mountains and redefine what’s attainable.”
Lower than a day later, on Tuesday afternoon, xAI co-founder Jimmy Ba, who reported on to Musk, mentioned that he, too, is bouncing, posting a gracious observe on X on his approach out. “Monumental because of @elonmusk for bringing us collectively on this unimaginable journey. So pleased with what the xAI staff has achieved and can proceed to remain shut as a pal of the staff,” it learn partly.
On their very own, each have been fairly normal tech departure bulletins — however they’re a part of a troubling sample for the lab. Six members of the corporate’s 12-person founding staff have now left the corporate, with 5 of the departures coming in simply the final yr. Infrastructure lead Kyle Kosic left for OpenAI in mid-2024, adopted by Google veteran Christian Szegedy in February 2025. This previous August, Igor Babuschkin left to discovered a enterprise agency, and Microsoft alum Greg Yang departed simply final month, citing well being points.
By all accounts, the splits have all been amicable, and there are many the explanation why, almost three years in, some founders may determine to maneuver on. Elon Musk is a notoriously demanding boss, and with the SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI full and an IPO pending within the coming months, everybody concerned has a reasonably large windfall coming. It’s a good time to be fundraising for an AI startup, so it’s solely pure for high-level researchers to need to strike out on their very own.
There are additionally much less amicable causes which may consider. The corporate’s flagship product, the Grok chatbot, has struggled with weird habits and obvious inner tampering — the type of factor which may simply create friction on the technical staff. Then there have been the current modifications to xAI’s image-generation instruments that flooded the platform with deepfake pornography, sparking slow-moving however actual authorized penalties.
Regardless of the trigger, the cumulative affect is alarming. There may be numerous work left to do at xAI, and an IPO will carry extra scrutiny than the lab has ever confronted earlier than. With Musk already spinning up plans for orbital information facilities, the strain to make good on these plans will likely be intense. The tempo of mannequin growth isn’t slowing down, and if Grok can’t maintain tempo with the most recent fashions from OpenAI and Anthropic, the IPO may simply endure.
In brief, the stakes are excessive, and xAI wants to carry on to all of the AI expertise it might probably.
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June 23, 2026
