The past few days have been a wild ride for xAI, which is racking up staff and cofounder departure announcements left and right. On Tuesday and Wednesday, cofounder Yuhuai (Tony) Wu announced his departure and that it was “time for [his] next chapter,” with cofounder Jimmy Ba following with a similar post later that day, writing that it was “time to recalibrate [his] gradient on the big picture.” The departures mean that xAI is now left with only half of its original 12 cofounders on staff. A number of staffers also took to X to announce they were leaving xAI, with some announcing that they were starting their own AI companies.
Elon Musk’s AI startup, by one merger / acquisition or another, is under the same umbrella as both his space company, SpaceX, and his social media platform, X. Since the SpaceX merger was announced last week, rumors have swirled about the reported $1.25 trillion valuation and the all-in-one company’s future plans, which Musk announced would involve “space-based AI” data centers and “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth.” In an internal meeting at xAI on Tuesday, Musk reportedly talked of plans to build an AI satellite factory and city on the Moon.
There’s often a natural departure point for companies post-merger, and Musk has announced that some of the departures were a reorganization that “unfortunately required parting ways with some people.” But there are also signs that people don’t like the direction Musk has taken things.
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