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Two xAI Co-Founders Leave Within 48 Hours, Bringing Departures to Half the Original Team

The twin exits follow internal reshuffles after SpaceX’s all‑stock acquisition of the startup.

Overview

  • Jimmy Ba said Tuesday was his last day at xAI, less than two days after Tony Wu announced his departure.
  • Six of the company’s 12 original co-founders have now left, with most departures occurring over the past year.
  • Recent reorganizations redistributed duties once held by Ba and Wu, consolidating responsibilities under co‑founder Guodong Zhang, according to internal charts and people cited by Business Insider.
  • xAI curtailed Grok’s image generation on X after the model produced non‑consensual explicit images of real people, and the system has faced temporary blocks in multiple countries, 36Kr reported.
  • The leadership churn follows a reported $20 billion January raise and SpaceX’s all‑stock takeover, as Elon Musk promotes plans that include a lunar factory to produce AI satellites, per the New York Times.