Elon Musk’s last co-founder reportedly leaves xAI
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg / Getty Images
In just a few weeks, the xAI founding team has ceased to exist in its original form. Elon Musk remains the sole member of the original eleven-person leadership group of his artificial intelligence company after the last two co-founders, Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen, stepped down. As reported by Business Insider, Kroiss announced his departure midweek, and Nordeen left the startup last Friday, concluding a series of resignations that began earlier this month. Such rapid turnover in xAI's top management raises questions about the internal stability of a project that aims to challenge giants like OpenAI and Google. For global users and investors, this signifies a phase of uncertainty regarding the development direction of the flagship Grok model. Although Musk is known for centralizing power and personal oversight of engineering, the loss of experienced talent who built the startup's technical foundations may affect the pace of implementing new features and optimizing algorithms. xAI is currently entering a critical stage of scaling its computing infrastructure without the support of the people who helped bring this vision to life.
In the world of technology, where the stability of a founding team is often seen as the foundation for long-term success, Elon Musk's xAI is currently facing an unprecedented challenge in terms of both image and operations. Just over a dozen months after the high-profile launch of the startup intended to challenge giants like OpenAI or Google, the last co-founders have jumped ship. What began as an elite group of 11 visionaries now resembles a one-man show supported by an army of engineers, but stripped of its original core of leaders.
The "exodus" phenomenon at xAI has gained momentum in recent days, as information about the departure of the project's last two pillars came to light. According to reports from Business Insider, Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen have said their goodbyes to the company. Their departure closes a process that has been ongoing for months, suggesting a deep internal transformation of the management structure in one of the most well-funded artificial intelligence companies in the world.
The end of the co-founder era at xAI
When Elon Musk announced the creation of xAI in July 2023, the list of names involved in the project was impressive. They were specialists recruited from DeepMind, Microsoft Research, and Tesla. The collaboration model assumed that a group of 11 co-founders would create a counterweight to "closed" AI systems, promoting an approach based on truth-seeking and understanding the universe. However, corporate reality under Musk's leadership proved to be extremely dynamic – and apparently too demanding for the original lineup.
Read also
As recently as the beginning of this month, it seemed that Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen would remain the last bastions of stability in the company. According to sources close to the company, Kroiss had previously communicated his intentions to leave the xAI structure to those around him. Meanwhile, Nordeen, whose contribution to the development of computing infrastructure was crucial, reportedly parted ways with the company definitively last Friday. The lack of official comment from Musk himself only fuels speculation regarding the reasons for such rapid turnover at the highest levels.
- Manuel Kroiss: One of the last technical leaders who decided to depart this week.
- Ross Nordeen: A systems expert whose departure last Friday ends the presence of the original co-founders at xAI.
- Pace of change: In less than two years, 100% of the original founding team (excluding Musk himself) has left the company.
Ambitions vs. operational reality
The departure of key figures comes at a time when xAI is trying to scale its computing power. Building the Colossus supercomputer, based on 100,000 NVIDIA H100 processors, requires not only capital but, above all, continuity of technical supervision. Losing the people who designed the system architecture from day one could mean delays in training the next iterations of the Grok model. The AI industry does not forgive downtime, and competition in the form of GPT-5 or new models from Anthropic is not slowing down.
Analyzing the history of Musk's other ventures, such as Tesla or SpaceX, a recurring pattern can be observed. The founder often replaces management staff during transitions from the conceptual phase to the aggressive scaling phase. However, in the case of xAI, the pace of these changes is astonishing. This may suggest that the vision of a "maximum truth-seeking AI" has clashed with pragmatic market requirements or the specific hardcore work style that Musk promotes across all his companies.
"The structure of xAI was unusual from the beginning, based on a looser hierarchy than in traditional corporations, which was intended to foster innovation. However, the total replacement of the founding team in such a short time raises questions about the sustainability of the organizational culture."
A new chapter without the old guard
Will xAI lose momentum without its co-founders? Unlikely, given the financial resources at Musk's disposal and the tight integration with the X (formerly Twitter) platform, which provides unique data for training models. The company will likely now move into a phase of more centralized management, where Musk will have even greater influence over every technical and strategic aspect. This is a risky approach, considering how complex safety and ethics issues are in the field of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
From a market perspective, xAI must now prove that it can attract a new generation of talent to replace the departing veterans. Engineers from Google or Meta still see prestige in Musk's startups and the chance to work on the world's largest computing clusters. Nevertheless, the signal sent by Kroiss and Nordeen is clear: even the most ambitious projects can have difficulty retaining the people who laid their foundation stones.
In the coming months, it will be crucial to observe progress on the Grok-3 model. If xAI manages to maintain its pace of development without the original staff, Musk will confirm his thesis that he is the only indispensable element of his companies. However, if the project begins to show signs of stagnation, the industry will gain proof that in the AI arms race, it is a stable, cohesive team of engineers, rather than just computing power and the owner's name, that determines ultimate victory.
