Every co-founder Elon Musk recruited to build xAI has now reportedly left the company. Manuel Kroiss, who led the pretraining team, told people this month that he was departing. Ross Nordeen, described by Business Insider as Musk’s “right-hand operator,” left on Friday. They were the last two of eleven co-founders, all of whom have exited a company that was valued at $250 billion when SpaceX acqui...
The narrative presents a compelling case about the challenges of retaining top AI talent, even with substantial resources. The strongest version of this story highlights the tension between Musk’s ambitious vision and the operational realities of AI research, where stability and culture matter as much as capital. The pattern of co-founder departures at xAI mirrors similar turnover at Twitter and Tesla, suggesting a systemic issue in Musk’s management style—particularly in research-driven fields ...