Elon Musk's artificial intelligence venture, xAI, has reportedly seen the departure of all its original co-founders. Following an earlier exodus of nine out of eleven co-founders, Business Insider now reports that the final two, Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen, have also left the startup.
Business Insider detailed the timeline of these recent exits, stating that Kroiss informed individuals of his impending departure from xAI on Wednesday, with Nordeen's exit from the company reportedly occurring on Friday.
These developments unfold as Musk himself recently acknowledged that xAI "was not built right the first time around," indicating that the company is "being rebuilt from the foundations up." This restructuring follows xAI's recent acquisition by Musk's SpaceX, a move that consolidates SpaceX, xAI, and X (formerly Twitter) under a unified corporate structure, amidst reports of SpaceX's plans for an initial public offering.
According to Business Insider, both Kroiss and Nordeen held direct reporting lines to Musk. Kroiss was instrumental in leading xAI's pretraining team, while Nordeen served as Musk's "right-hand operator." Nordeen's professional background includes a tenure at Tesla before joining xAI, and he was notably involved in orchestrating significant layoffs at Twitter subsequent to Musk's acquisition of the platform in 2022.
TechCrunch has sought official comment from xAI regarding these personnel changes.
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