Earlier this month, it appeared that nine of Elon Musk’s 11 co-founders at his AI startup xAI had already departed. Now, according to Business Insider, the remaining two co-founders, Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen, have also reportedly left the company.
Business Insider reported on Wednesday that Kroiss had informed individuals of his impending departure from xAI, and subsequently announced on Friday that Nordeen had also exited the company.
These departures occur as Musk recently stated that xAI “was not built right [the] first time around” and is currently “being rebuilt from the foundations up.” The AI firm was recently acquired by Musk’s SpaceX, consolidating SpaceX, xAI, and X (formerly Twitter) under a single corporate umbrella, while SpaceX is reportedly preparing for an IPO.
According to Business Insider, both Kroiss and Nordeen reported directly to Musk, with Kroiss overseeing the company’s pretraining team and Nordeen serving as Musk’s “right-hand operator.” Nordeen reportedly transitioned to xAI from Tesla and played a role in orchestrating significant layoffs at Twitter after Musk’s acquisition in 2022.
TechCrunch has reached out to xAI for a comment on these developments.