All 11 xAI Co-Founders Have Now Left Elon Musk's AI Company Amid Major Corporate Upheaval
Summary
All 11 co-founders of Elon Musk's xAI have now departed the company, raising serious questions about its future as SpaceX absorbs the $250 billion acquisition and Musk admits its products must be rebuilt from scratch.
Key Points
- All 11 co-founders of Elon Musk's xAI have now departed the company, with the final two exits — Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen — confirmed this week, completing a rapid exodus that accelerated in early 2026.
- The departures coincide with major corporate upheaval, including SpaceX's $250 billion acquisition of xAI in February 2026 and Musk's own public admission that xAI's products 'were not built right the first time around' and need to be rebuilt from scratch.
- The loss of all founding researchers — who include some of AI's most cited and accomplished figures — raises serious questions about xAI's future competitiveness, especially as rivals like Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic aggressively compete for top AI talent with packages reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars.