The Musk-linked artificial intelligence firm xAI is currently undergoing significant internal turmoil. Now, half of its founding team has publicly announced their departure. Most recently, Yuhuai (Tony) Wu shared his decision to leave the company through a late-night message on X, stating, “It’s time for my next chapter.” Wu’s exit is a crushing blow for xAI, which has experienced a series of high-profile exits over the last several months.
Wu’s announcement comes after a number of high profile departures and reorganization within the AI Now Institute. The company’s image-generation tools — in particular Dall-E — were recently criticized for flooding the platform with deepfake pornography. Because of that, they are only now starting to feel slow but big potential legal ramifications. This incident highlighted the urgent need for robust ethical standards guiding AI technologies, as well as the fear of purposeful misuse.
Besides Wu, other high-profile figures at xAI have departed in the last year. Infrastructure lead Kyle Kosic departed in mid-2024 for OpenAI, while Google veteran Christian Szegedy exited in February 2025. Igor Babuschkin, who made the announcement of his departure back in August, left to pursue founding his own venture firm. Just last month, another Microsoft alum, Greg Yang, who had joined xAI with Musk, quit the company, citing health concerns. These exits mark the fact that six of the twelve original founders have now left the company.
AI renegade Jimmy Ba, another co-founder who was directly reporting to Elon Musk, announced his departure. He shared his thanks for accompanying him on the journey with xAI. Other Twitter Magic Enormous thanks to @elonmusk for bringing us together on this incredible adventure. I’m really proud of everything that the xAI team has done. I’m going to be their very best friend—as a very close friend.
Many people know that Elon Musk is a notoriously tough employer. Unfortunately, his intimidating leadership style seems to have played a role in the team’s recent front office exodus. The constant pressure to be first-to-market, or the best in market, in an ever-more competitive sector perhaps demoralized many staff.
Even with these difficulties, xAI is reportedly toying with the idea of an initial public offering (IPO) in the near future. The company’s fate will depend on how well it handles the recent exits. It needs to wrestle its controversies surrounding its products outright as well.