2026-02-11T13:25:54.525Z
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Elon Musk’s AI startup is facing a flurry of top employee departures.
The departures included xAI cofounders Jimmy Ba and Tony Wu, who both thanked Musk for the opportunity.
More than half of xAI’s cofounders have left the startup since Musk founded it in 2023.
xAI is facing an exodus of top employees.
Two cofounders and several other employees have announced their departures from Elon Musk’s AI startup in the past few days.
It comes after Musk announced last week that xAI would merge with his rocket company, SpaceX, in a deal the billionaire said would help the joint entity build a network of AI data centers in space.
SpaceX is reportedly gearing up for a massive public offering later this year that could value the company at as much as $1.5 trillion. That could be a major boost for xAI, which reportedly burned through billions of dollars last year.
The departures are the latest turmoil to hit the startup since Musk founded xAI in 2023 with the aim of taking on Google and OpenAI.
Since then, around half of the company’s cofounders have left, and xAI has faced global backlash over sexual images of real people generated on X by Grok, the startup’s AI chatbot.
Here’s everyone who has left xAI in the company’s most recent exodus. Business Insider has contacted xAI and each of the following employees for comment.
Tony Wu
xAI cofounder Tony Wu announced his resignation from the company on Tuesday. In a post on X, the former Google researcher said it was time for his “next chapter” and thanked Musk for “the ride of a lifetime.”
Business Insider’s Grace Kay previously reported that Wu began reporting directly to Musk last year and led xAI’s reasoning efforts.
Jimmy Ba
Jimmy Ba became the second xAI cofounder to announce his departure from the company in less than 48 hours on Tuesday.
The executive, who previously oversaw the startup’s AI tutoring efforts, also thanked Musk for the opportunity and said he was proud of what xAI had accomplished in a post on X.
Ba’s departure means that six out of the 11 cofounders who launched xAI with Musk in 2023 have now left the company.
Hang Gao
Hang Gao, a member of technical staff, also announced in an X post on Tuesday that he had left xAI.
The Berkeley alumnus, who worked on xAI’s Grok Imagine AI video generator, described his time at the company as “unique and memorable.”
Vahid Kazemi
Vahid Kazemi, a member of xAI’s technical staff, said on X on February 11 that he had left the company a few weeks prior. “That was short! IMO, all AI labs are building the exact same thing, and it’s boring. I think there’s room for more creativity,” he wrote, adding that he was starting “something new.”
Kazemi joined xAI last year and, before that, worked at OpenAI. He also previously worked at Google and Apple.
Ayush Jaiswal
Ayush Jaiswal worked on Grok at xAI and announced on February 6 that it was his last week at the company. “Will be taking a few months to spend time with family & tinker with AI,” he wrote in a post on X. Jaiswal joined xAI in September 2025, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that, he was head of growth at Scale AI.
Shayan Salehian
Shayan Salehian said on February 7 that he was leaving after a seven-year stint across Twitter and X to build something new.
He worked on the X timeline as well as various Grok models, he wrote in a post on X. He added that he is leaving to work on something “focused on accelerating science.”
“Working closely with Elon across X and xAI, I saw what happens when you refuse to accept impossible as an answer,” he wrote on X.
Simon Zhai
Simon Zhai, a member of the xAI technical staff, joined the company in October 2025 and announced his departure on February 9.
“Today is my last day at xAI, feeling very fortunate about the opportunity. It has been an amazing journey,” he wrote in a brief departure post on X. Before xAI, Zhai was a research scientist at Google DeepMind.
