Senior engineers, together with co-founders, exit xAI amid controversy

A minimum of 9 engineers, together with two co-founders, have now publicly introduced their departure from xAI previously week – although two of these exits seem to have occurred just a few weeks in the past. 

Neither xAI nor Elon Musk have publicly commented on the departures. 

Whereas attrition is typical at startups, co-founder departures are far much less so. Greater than half of xAI’s founding staff has now left, and the truth that a number of staff adopted inside days has intensified scrutiny across the firm’s stability.

Three of the departing employees members say they are going to be beginning one thing new alongside different former xAI engineers, though no particulars can be found concerning the new enterprise. Others trace at a want for extra autonomy and smaller groups to construct frontier tech extra quickly, pointing to the anticipated surge in AI productiveness.

Yuhai (Tony) Wu, an xAI co-founder and reasoning lead, said in a post asserting his resignation: “It’s time for my subsequent chapter. It’s an period with full potentialities: a small staff armed with AIs can transfer mountains and redefine what’s attainable.”

Shayan Salehian, who labored on product infrastructure and mannequin conduct post-training xAI and beforehand labored at Twitter/X, said last week he was leaving to “begin one thing new.” 

Legitimate Kazemi, who had a quick stint engaged on machine studying, posted Tuesday that he left just a few weeks in the past, including: “IMO, all AI labs are constructing the very same factor, and it’s boring…So, I’m beginning one thing new.” Roland Gavrilescu, a former xAI engineer, left in November to begin Nuraline, an organization constructing “forward-deployed AI brokers,” however posted once more on Tuesday that he left the agency to construct “one thing new with others that left xAI.”

The departures come at a second of serious controversy for xAI. The corporate is dealing with regulatory scrutiny after Grok created nonconsensual express deepfakes of ladies and kids which have been disseminated on X – French authorities last week raided X places of work as a part of an investigation. The corporate can be shifting in the direction of a deliberate IPO later this yr, after being legally acquired by SpaceX final week.

Musk can be dealing with private controversy after recordsdata printed by the Justice Division present prolonged conversations with convicted rapist and intercourse trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The emails present Musk discussing a visit to Epstein’s island on two separate events, in 2012 and 2013. Epstein was first convicted of procuring a toddler for prostitution in 2008.

xAI maintains a headcount of over 1,000 employees, so the departures are unlikely to have an effect on the businesses short-term capabilities. Nonetheless, the speedy tempo of the latest departures has taken on a lifetime of their very own on-line, with customers jokingly asserting they too are “leaving xAI” regardless of by no means having labored there — an indication of how shortly the narrative of a “mass exodus” has snowballed on Musk’s X.

Nonetheless, co-founder exits are more durable to dismiss as routine churn. As Musk continues to consolidate his AI ambitions, their departures elevate broader questions on governance and long-term stability at xAI. In frontier AI, the place expertise is scarce, qualities like reputational gravity and mission readability matter. The extra urgent query might not be what number of engineers have left, however whether or not xAI can preserve the institutional steadiness wanted to compete with rivals like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. 

TechCrunch has reached out to xAI for extra data.

Timeline of departure bulletins:

The next staff have publicly introduced their departures from xAI on X in latest days:

February 6:  Ayush Jaiswal, engineer, wrote: “This was my final week at xAI. Can be taking just a few months to spend time with household & tinker with AI.”

February 7: Shayan Salehian, who labored on product infrastructure and mannequin conduct post-training and was beforehand at X, wrote: “I left xAI to begin one thing new, closing my 7+ yr chapter working at Twitter, X, and xAI with a lot gratitude.” He added that working carefully with Elon Musk taught him “obsessive consideration to element, maniacal urgency, and to suppose from first rules.”

February 9: Simon Zhai, MTS (member of technical employees), wrote: “In the present day is my final day at xAI, feeling very lucky concerning the alternative. It has been a tremendous journey.”

February 10: Yuhai (Tony) Wu, co-founder and reasoning lead, wrote: “I resigned. It’s time for my subsequent chapter. It’s an period with full potentialities: a small staff armed with AIs can transfer mountains and redefine what’s attainable.”

February 10: Jimmy Ba, co-founder and analysis/security lead, wrote: “Final day at xAI… We’re heading to an age of 100x productiveness with the fitting instruments. Recursive self enchancment loops probably go stay within the subsequent 12 months. It’s time to recalibrate my gradient on the massive image. 2026 is gonna be insane and sure the busiest (and most consequential) yr for the way forward for our species.”

February 10: Vahid Kazemi, an ML PhD, wrote that he had left xAI “just a few weeks in the past,” including: “IMO, all AI labs are constructing the very same factor, and it’s boring. I believe there’s room for extra creativity. So, I’m beginning one thing new.”

February 10: Hang Gao, who labored on multimodal efforts together with Grok Think about, wrote: “I left xAI at this time.” He described his time there as “really rewarding,” citing contributions to Grok Think about’s releases and praising the staff’s “humble craftsmanship and bold imaginative and prescient.”

February 10: Roland Gavrilescu, the engineer who left in November to begin Nuraline, posted: “I left xAI. Constructing one thing new with others that left xAI. We’re hiring :)”

February 10: Chance Lee, a member of the Macrohard founding staff, wrote: “Taking a quick reset then again to the frontier.” (Macrohard is an AI-only software program enterprise beneath xAI designed to completely automate software program improvement, coding, and operations utilizing Grok-powered, multi-agent methods. Its title is a dig at Microsoft.)

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