Elon Musk says the recent exodus at xAI was necessary, rather than a sign of dissatisfaction. In a post Wednesday, the billionaire SpaceX owner said his artificial intelligence startup, now folded into SpaceX, was "reorganized" to move faster, a shift he said meant "parting ways with some people." This follows the exit this week of two xAI co-founders, Tony Wu and Jimmy Ba, per TechCrunch. With another, Greg Yang, having stepped back in January for health reasons, along with previous attrition, there are now just half of the original 12 co-founders remaining at the 3-year-old company, per NBC News.
At least seven other technical staffers have also said publicly they've exited since the start of the year, though xAI has not confirmed their employment or departures. One of them, researcher Vahid Kazemi, told NBC he quit just before SpaceX acquired xAI, citing 12-hour days and saying major AI labs are now "building the exact same thing." He suggested the SpaceX tie-up pushed some employees to reassess, arguing a small AI outfit can grow faster than "a trillion-dollar space company."
"Musk's comments seem designed to control the narrative, reframing the exits as necessary rather than a problem for the outfit," per TechCrunch. But "the fact that several engineers followed the co-founders out the door—and that at least three are starting something new together—suggests the departures may also reflect deeper tensions." Musk said the company was reorganizing "to be more effective" at a larger scale, per Reuters. "There's some people who are better suited for the early stages of a company and less suited for the later stages," he said, adding xAI is now aggressively recruiting new employees. "It's a grind, but we have, I guess, like interstellar ambitions," he said.
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