Elon Musk xAI loses half of its founding team in troubling exit wave

Half the founders have already left

It sounds wild, but it’s true. Since Elon Musk started xAI back in 2023, six out of the twelve people who helped launch the company are no longer there. That’s half the founding team in less than three years.

The latest to leave are Yuhuai (Tony) Wu and Jimmy Ba, both huge names in AI research. They announced their exits within days of each other. When you lose that many founders that fast, it’s not just normal turnover.

The man in charge of thinking machines

Tony Wu had one of the toughest jobs at xAI. He led the reasoning team, which focuses on helping AI models actually think through problems instead of just repeating patterns.

When Wu announced he was leaving, he posted that “it’s time for my next chapter” and talked about “a small team armed with AIs” doing big things. For xAI, it means one of the key people working on Grok’s reasoning capabilities just walked out the door.

The safety expert who studied under a legend

Jimmy Ba wasn’t just any researcher. He studied under Geoffrey Hinton, one of the actual godfathers of AI. At xAI, Ba was in charge of AI safety, which is basically making sure the technology doesn’t do harmful things.

He left the same week as Tony Wu. Ba said he’s proud of the team and will stay close as a friend. But losing your safety lead right before a major IPO is risky. Investors care a lot about whether a company can handle the ethical side of AI, and now xAI has to find someone new to fill those shoes.

One engineer called the work boring

Vahid Kazemi worked on audio models at xAI, but he left a few weeks ago. His reason? He said all the AI labs are building the same thing, and it’s boring. He wants more creativity and is starting something new instead.

He also opened up about the work culture, saying he regularly worked twelve-hour days, including holidays and weekends. When a talented engineer says your project is dull and the hours are brutal, it makes you wonder what daily life is really like inside xAI.

The CFO who lasted only three months

Mike Liberatore joined xAI as chief financial officer in April 2025. It was a massive job, especially with a huge IPO coming up. But after just three months, he was gone. That’s an incredibly short time for a CFO to stay anywhere.

He now works at OpenAI, xAI’s biggest rival. When a top finance executive jumps ship that fast and goes straight to the competition, people notice. It raises questions about what he might have seen, or not seen, that made him want out so quickly.

Health problems forced this founder out

Greg Yang was a founding member who came from Microsoft. He had to leave in January because of health issues related to Lyme disease. He said he probably had it for a long time, but the symptoms weren’t noticeable until he pushed himself too hard building xAI.

He mentioned that the intense work weakened his immune system. It’s a personal and sad reason to leave. But it also shows the extreme pressure employees might be under. When the work is so intense it affects your health, something has to give.

The guy who built Grok started his own fund

Igor Babuschkin was a lead engineer and key architect behind Grok, the chatbot most people associate with xAI. He left in August 2025 to start his own venture capital firm focused on AI research and startups.

The person who helped build xAI’s flagship product decided to leave and back other AI companies instead of staying to improve Grok. It was one of the first big-name founder departures and helped set the tone for the exits that followed.

A 12 year Google Vet moved on

Christian Szegedy spent twelve years at Google before joining xAI as a founding research scientist. That kind of experience is hard to find. He left in early 2025 to become chief scientist at another AI company called Morph Labs.

He later started his own math-focused AI company. Szegedy posted online that he left on good terms and thinks xAI has a bright future. Still, when someone with that much experience at Google moves on after just a couple of years, it tells you something about how things are going.

The first founder to leave went back to OpenAI

Kyle Kosic left OpenAI to help start xAI. He was the infrastructure lead, meaning he built the systems that make everything run. But after about a year, he went right back to OpenAI.

He left quietly in April 2024 without a big public statement. Going back to xAI’s direct competitor is about as clear a signal as you can get. He was the first co-founder to leave, and his return to OpenAI showed where he thought the better opportunity was.

The SpaceX merger timingcouldn’t be worse

In early February 2026, Musk announced that xAI would be acquired by SpaceX in an all-stock merger. It was supposed to be huge news, setting the stage for a massive SpaceX–xAI IPO later this year. It should have been a moment of celebration.

Instead, within days of the deal being announced, multiple co-founders announced they were leaving. For a company preparing to go public, stability is everything. Investors want to see a strong, steady leadership team, not half your founders walking out right before an IPO.

Musk says it’s just part of growing up

Elon Musk has addressed all these departures. He posted on X that as a company grows super fast, the structure has to change, like any living organism. He said it meant parting ways with some people, and framed it as a necessary reorganization to improve speed.

It’s a smart way to spin it. But losing six founders in under three years is a lot of “parting ways” for a company that’s supposed to be on top of the world. Whether it’s strategy or spin, the numbers speak for themselves.

Rivals are snatching up xAI’s best people

While xAI loses talent, competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic are gaining. Remember Kyle Kosic, the infrastructure lead? He went back to OpenAI. Mike Liberatore, the short-term CFO, also ended up at OpenAI. The list keeps growing.

In the AI world, talent is the most valuable resource. When your best people keep landing at the companies you’re trying to beat, it makes winning a lot harder. The war for top AI researchers is fierce, and right now, xAI seems to be losing some key battles.

And if you want a broader look at what’s on Elon Musk’s mind right now, check out why he predicts retirement savings will lose their importance.

So what happens to Grok now?

All these departures leave a big question mark over Grok, xAI’s main product. The people who built the reasoning tech, the safety protocols, and the core infrastructure are all gone. Can the remaining team keep up?

AI moves incredibly fast. A few months of slowdown can put you years behind. Musk still has huge plans, including talk of orbital data centres. But grand visions need brilliant people to make them real. For now, xAI’s future depends on whether the team that’s left can deliver without the founders who started it all.

And if you’re wondering what else is raising eyebrows around Musk’s AI efforts, take a look at the concerns over inappropriate content tied to his latest tool.

Thinking about starting a new chapter yourself? Or just have thoughts on all this xAI drama? Drop a comment below and hit that like button if you made it this far.

This slideshow was made with AI assistance and human editing.

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