Half of Elon Musk’s xAI Founding Team Has Now Left the Company — And the Timing Is Alarming
Six of xAI’s 12 co-founders have departed, with five leaving in the past year alone—just as Elon Musk’s AI lab prepares for a major IPO following SpaceX’s acquisition.
The X-odus is accelerating. Monday night, xAI co-founder Yuhuai (Tony) Wu announced he was leaving Elon Musk’s company. Less than 24 hours later, co-founder Jimmy Ba also quit. Six members of the company’s 12-person founding team have now left, with five departures coming in just the last year.
The timing is terrible. With SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI complete and an IPO pending in the coming months, the company faces more scrutiny than ever before. Musk is spinning up plans for orbital data centers, and the pressure to deliver is intense. If Grok can’t keep pace with the latest models from OpenAI and Anthropic, the IPO could easily suffer.
The splits have been amicable, and there are good reasons founders might leave now—everyone involved has a big windfall coming, and it’s a great time to fundraise for AI startups. But the cumulative impact is alarming. There’s a lot of work left to do at xAI, and the company needs to hold on to all the AI talent it can.
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The X-odus is accelerating. Monday night, xAI co-founder Yuhuai (Tony) Wu announced he was leaving Elon Musk’s company. Less than 24 hours later, co-founder Jimmy Ba also quit. Six members of the company’s 12-person founding team have now left, with five departures coming in just the last year.
The timing is terrible. With SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI complete and an IPO pending in the coming months, the company faces more scrutiny than ever before. Musk is spinning up plans for orbital data centers, and the pressure to deliver is intense. If Grok can’t keep pace with the latest models from OpenAI and Anthropic, the IPO could easily suffer.
The splits have been amicable, and there are good reasons founders might leave now—everyone involved has a big windfall coming, and it’s a great time to fundraise for AI startups. But the cumulative impact is alarming. There’s a lot of work left to do at xAI, and the company needs to hold on to all the AI talent it can.
Sign up for the Entrepreneur Daily newsletter to get the news and resources you need to know today to help you run your business better. Get it in your inbox.
