Over the past week, at least nine engineers, including two co-founders, have publicly disclosed their exits from xAI, though some of these departures reportedly took place several weeks prior.
Neither xAI nor its founder, Elon Musk, has issued public statements regarding these departures.
While employee turnover is common in the startup ecosystem, the departure of co-founders is a significantly rarer event. With more than half of xAI's founding team now gone, and several other employees following suit within days, questions about the company's stability have intensified.
Three of the departing individuals have indicated plans to launch a new venture alongside other former xAI engineers, though specific details about this undertaking remain undisclosed. Other former employees have alluded to a desire for greater autonomy and the agility of smaller teams to accelerate the development of frontier technology, anticipating a significant boost in AI productivity.
Yuhai (Tony) Wu, an xAI co-founder and lead in reasoning, announced his resignation in a post, stating: “It’s time for my next chapter. It is an era with full possibilities: a small team armed with AIs can move mountains and redefine what’s possible.”
Shayan Salehian, who contributed to xAI's product infrastructure and post-training model behavior, and previously worked at Twitter/X, stated last week his intention to depart and “start something new.”
In his announcement, Salehian shared: “I left xAI to start something new, closing my 7+ year chapter working at Twitter, X, and xAI with so much gratitude. xAI is truly an extraordinary place. The team is incredibly hardcore and talented, shipping at a pace that shouldn’t be possible.”
Valid Kazemi, who had a short tenure focusing on machine learning, posted on Tuesday that he departed several weeks ago, remarking: “IMO, all AI labs are building the exact same thing, and it’s boring…So, I’m starting something new.” Similarly, Roland Gavrilescu, an engineer who left xAI in November to establish Nuraline, a firm developing “forward-deployed AI agents,” also announced on Tuesday that he has since left Nuraline to construct “something new with others that left xAI.”
These departures coincide with a period of significant controversy for xAI. The company is currently under regulatory scrutiny following reports that its AI model, Grok, generated nonconsensual explicit deepfakes of women and children, which were then circulated on X. French authorities recently raided X offices as part of an ongoing investigation into this matter. Furthermore, xAI is progressing toward a planned IPO later this year, having been legally acquired by SpaceX just last week.
Concurrently, Elon Musk is embroiled in personal controversy, as Justice Department files have revealed extensive communications with convicted rapist and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The emails indicate Musk discussed visiting Epstein’s island on two separate occasions in 2012 and 2013. Epstein was initially convicted in 2008 for procuring a child for prostitution.
With a current headcount exceeding 1,000 employees, these departures are not expected to significantly impact xAI’s short-term operational capabilities. Nevertheless, the rapid succession of recent exits has gained considerable traction online, with users humorously declaring their own "departures from xAI" despite never having been employed there – illustrating how swiftly the narrative of a "mass exodus" has proliferated across Musk’s platform, X.
However, the departure of co-founders cannot be easily dismissed as routine attrition. As Elon Musk continues to consolidate his ambitious AI endeavors, these exits prompt broader inquiries into xAI’s governance and long-term stability. In the competitive landscape of frontier AI, where top talent is a scarce commodity, attributes such as reputational standing and clarity of mission are paramount. The more critical question may not be the sheer number of engineers who have left, but rather xAI’s capacity to sustain the institutional stability required to effectively compete with industry leaders such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
TechCrunch has sought further information from xAI regarding these developments.
The following individuals have publicly announced their departures from xAI on X in recent days:
February 6: Ayush Jaiswal, an engineer, posted: “This was my last week at xAI. Will be taking a few months to spend time with family & tinker with AI.”
February 7: Shayan Salehian, who focused on product infrastructure and post-training model behavior and previously worked at X, announced: “I left xAI to start something new, closing my 7+ year chapter working at Twitter, X, and xAI with so much gratitude.” He further noted that his collaboration with Elon Musk instilled in him “obsessive attention to detail, maniacal urgency, and to think from first principles.”
February 9: Simon Zhai, a Member of Technical Staff (MTS), wrote: “Today is my last day at xAI, feeling very fortunate about the opportunity. It has been an amazing journey.”
February 10: Yuhai (Tony) Wu, a co-founder and reasoning lead, stated: “I resigned. It’s time for my next chapter. It is an era with full possibilities: a small team armed with AIs can move mountains and redefine what’s possible.”
February 10: Jimmy Ba, a co-founder and lead in research and safety, posted: “Last day at xAI… We are heading to an age of 100x productivity with the right tools. Recursive self improvement loops likely go live in the next 12 months. It’s time to recalibrate my gradient on the big picture. 2026 is gonna be insane and likely the busiest (and most consequential) year for the future of our species.”
February 10: Vahid Kazemi, an ML PhD, confirmed he had left xAI “a few weeks ago,” elaborating: “IMO, all AI labs are building the exact same thing, and it’s boring. I think there’s room for more creativity. So, I’m starting something new.”
February 10: Hang Gao, who contributed to multimodal initiatives including Grok Imagine, simply stated: “I left xAI today.” He characterized his tenure as “truly rewarding,” highlighting his contributions to Grok Imagine’s releases and commending the team’s “humble craftsmanship and ambitious vision.”
February 10: Roland Gavrilescu, the engineer who previously departed in November to found Nuraline, posted: “I left xAI. Building something new with others that left xAI. We’re hiring :)”
February 10: Chance Lee, a founding team member of Macrohard, wrote: “Taking a brief reset then back to the frontier.” (Macrohard is an xAI-incubated, AI-only software venture focused on fully automating software development, coding, and operations through Grok-powered, multi-agent systems, with its name notably a playful jab at Microsoft.)
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