Overview
- Tony Wu and Jimmy Ba announced their departures in posts on X without giving reasons.
- The exits leave xAI with roughly half of its original 12 cofounders, according to reporting.
- The Financial Times reported that Ba’s resignation followed technical tensions over demands to boost model performance under Elon Musk.
- Days earlier, SpaceX said it will buy xAI, target a combined $1.25 trillion valuation, and pursue an IPO to help finance plans for orbital data centers.
- xAI is accelerating new Grok releases and seeking billions for more compute after prior cuts that included about 500 content labelers and turnover in finance and legal roles.