Musk's xAI Loses Second Co-founder in Two Days

Two days. Two departures. And a $1.25 trillion question about what's really happening inside Elon Musk's AI empire.

Jimmy Ba, the University of Toronto professor whose research helped power xAI's Grok 4 models, announced his exit Tuesday on X. "Grateful to have helped co-found at the start," he wrote—a diplomatic farewell that came just 24 hours after fellow co-founder Tony Wu made his own departure public.

The Unraveling Dream Team

When Musk launched xAI in 2023, he assembled what many called a "dream team" of 11 co-founders. The mission? Nothing less than understanding "the true nature of the universe."

Now, nearly half are gone. Igor Babuschkin, Kyle Kosic, and Christian Szegedy have already departed. Greg Yang stepped back last month to battle Lyme disease. The exodus leaves Musk's AI venture looking more like a revolving door than a research powerhouse.

Ba's departure stings particularly. His work on neural networks directly influenced Grok's capabilities, making him one of the technical architects behind xAI's flagship product.

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Scandal and Scrutiny

The timing isn't coincidental. xAI faces regulatory probes across Europe, Asia, and the U.S. after its Grok AI enabled mass production of non-consensual explicit images—deepfake porn using real people's photos, including children.

For a company that promised to unlock cosmic truths, getting mired in deepfake scandals represents a spectacular mission drift. Regulators aren't amused, and the investigations are just beginning.

The SpaceX Factor

This month's all-stock merger with SpaceX valued the combined entity at over a trillion dollars, with SpaceX taking the lion's share at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion. The deal positions SpaceX for its planned IPO this year, but it also transforms xAI from scrappy startup to corporate subsidiary.

For researchers who joined to revolutionize AI, becoming part of an aerospace conglomerate might not align with their original vision. The corporate structure that comes with trillion-dollar valuations can feel constraining to academics used to research freedom.

The bigger question: In an AI arms race where talent is the ultimate currency, can any company—even one backed by Musk's empire—afford to lose its founding scientists?