xAI Loses Co-Founders Ahead of Major SpaceX Deal
Business
Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI has lost two co-founders in just two days, adding to a broader wave of departures as the company moves toward a major merger with SpaceX and faces regulatory scrutiny.
Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI has lost its second co-founder in two days. Jimmy Ba, a University of Toronto professor and one of the researchers behind the Grok AI model, announced his departure. Earlier, another co-founder, Tony Wu, also said he was leaving the company.
Ba thanked Musk for the opportunity to be among the company’s founding members but did not specify the reasons for his departure.
Several other co-founders had previously left the company, including Igor Babuschkin, Kyle Kosic, Christian Szegedy, and Greg Yang. The wave of departures comes amid major corporate changes.
In early February, Musk announced the merger of xAI with SpaceX. The all-stock deal reportedly valued SpaceX at about $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion.
Earlier, xAI was also used in a stock-swap deal to acquire the social network X, announced in March 2025.
The company is also facing regulatory investigations in Europe, Asia, and the United States. The probes were triggered by cases in which the Grok chatbot and image generator allegedly allowed the creation of explicit deepfake images without the consent of the individuals depicted, including minors.
Ba thanked Musk for the opportunity to be among the company’s founding members but did not specify the reasons for his departure.
Several other co-founders had previously left the company, including Igor Babuschkin, Kyle Kosic, Christian Szegedy, and Greg Yang. The wave of departures comes amid major corporate changes.
In early February, Musk announced the merger of xAI with SpaceX. The all-stock deal reportedly valued SpaceX at about $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion.
Earlier, xAI was also used in a stock-swap deal to acquire the social network X, announced in March 2025.
The company is also facing regulatory investigations in Europe, Asia, and the United States. The probes were triggered by cases in which the Grok chatbot and image generator allegedly allowed the creation of explicit deepfake images without the consent of the individuals depicted, including minors.
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