After a year-long exodus, every one of Elon Musk's original xAI co-founders has left the company, with the last two departing this week. Manuel Kroiss, who led pretraining efforts and reported directly to Musk, informed insiders of his exit in mid-March, according to Business Insider. Ross Nordeen, who joined xAI from Tesla and served as Musk's "right-hand operator," confirmed his departure on Friday, March 28. All 11 original co-founders aside from Musk are now gone.
The Departure Wave
The departures unfolded progressively since January 2026. Initial exits included Guodong Zhang (who led Grok Code and Grok Imagine), Zihang Dai, Toby Pohlen, Jimmy Ba, Tony Wu, and Greg Yang. The wave continued through early March, leaving only Kroiss and Nordeen until this week.
Musk acknowledged the departures at the Abundance Summit, stating xAI "was not built right the first time around" and is being "rebuilt from the foundations up." Reports describe the exits as "push, not pull" — departing employees cited frustration over autonomy, team size, and performance demands as the company scaled.
SpaceX Acquisition and IPO Plans
The timing is significant: SpaceX acquired xAI in late January or early February 2026 through an all-stock reverse triangular merger, creating a combined entity valued at $1.25 trillion — now the world's most valuable private company. The merger integrated xAI's AI capabilities with SpaceX's space launch and satellite systems.
According to Musk, the goal is a vertically integrated platform combining AI, space-based internet, rockets, and direct-to-mobile communications. He noted at the Summit that "within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space."
SpaceX is now considering a mid- to late-2026 IPO that could raise up to $50 billion and value the company at $1.75 trillion. It's unclear whether the departures or xAI's integration will affect that timeline. xAI is currently burning approximately $1 billion per month as it races to close the gap on rivals like OpenAI.