Ayelet Sheffey

Parents who took out student loans for their kids are quickly approaching a key relief deadline

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Parent student-loan borrowers have to act quickly to keep their affordable monthly payments.

President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful” spending legislation made sweeping changes to student-loan repayment, and loans that parents take out for their kids, known as parent PLUS, are facing a key deadline.

Currently, parents can take out loans equal to the full cost of attendance. Beginning July 1, 2026, parent PLUS borrowers will face a $20,000 annual cap and a $65,000 lifetime cap on borrowing per student. Also, loans issued after July 1 will not be eligible for income-driven repayment plans, which aim to give borrowers affordable payments based on income and offer loan forgiveness in 20 to 25 years.

This means that parent PLUS borrowers who are not on an income-driven repayment plan need to consolidate their loans into a federal direct loan before July 1 to retain access to affordable payments. The Department of Education recommends that borrowers seeking to consolidate do so “at least three months” before July 1 — that is, before April 1 — to account for any processing delays.

Once the consolidation is approved, borrowers have until July 1, 2028, to enroll in an IDR plan. After that date, existing income-driven repayment plans will be phased out and replaced with two options: a standard repayment plan, which offers fixed monthly payments for a period up to 25 years, or a new Repayment Assistance Plan, which sets payments based on income with forgiveness after 30 years.

RAP has less generous terms than existing repayment plans, and borrowers are likely to face higher monthly payments.

Parent PLUS borrowers who do not consolidate before July 1 will lose access to income-driven repayment plans, as will those who initiate a new loan after that date.

Alongside the parent PLUS changes, the Department of Education is eliminating the Grad PLUS program, which allowed graduate and professional students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance for their advanced degrees. Policy experts and lawmakers previously told Business Insider that the new borrowing caps could drive more parents and students to private lending, which could have riskier terms and higher interest rates.

A recent report from the Government Accountability Office found that the Department of Education decreased oversight over federal student-loan servicers, putting borrowers at risk of billing errors as the repayment changes are implemented. Additionally, the department recently announced that it will be transferring part of the federal student-loan portfolio to the Treasury, which advocates and Democratic lawmakers said opens the door for transfer errors.

Have a story to share about student loans? Reach out to this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.




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Jake Epstein

NATO is stepping up its Arctic patrols. A key goal is getting eyes on Russian subs before they can disappear into deep water.

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NATO is expanding its footprint across the Arctic and North Atlantic, increasing patrols and joint operations as Russia’s submarine forces grow more active, two Western officials told Business Insider.

Across air, land, and sea, NATO’s presence and overall activity in the region have more than doubled over the last two to three years, said Vice Adm. Rune Andersen, chief of the Norwegian Joint Headquarters.

Andersen said that the surge is “partially a response to increased Russian out-of-area deployments with the submarines” and “a need to keep track of that.”

Russia maintains one of the world’s largest submarine fleets, with an estimated 64 active boats. The Northern Fleet, based in the Murmansk region on the Barents Sea, operates dozens.

To get from Murmansk to the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean and Baltic seas, Russian submarines often sail west through the Arctic before turning south and going through the North Sea or the waters in between Greenland, Iceland, and the UK — a naval chokepoint known as the GIUK gap.

In recent years, Western military officers have increasingly called attention to the growing Russian naval presence — specifically its submarines — in the Arctic and the North Atlantic, and have stressed the need to monitor this activity to avoid surprises.


Royal Navy ships track a Russian submarine through the English Channel in December 2025.

The Royal Navy tracks a Russian submarine through the English Channel.

Royal Navy



If the Russian submarines make it out of the relatively “shallow water and out into the deep Atlantic sea, it becomes more difficult once they’re out in the really big ocean to track them,” said Col. Martin O’Donnell, the spokesperson for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, or SHAPE, which commands all NATO operations.

“Not that they can’t be tracked, but the difficulty — if you don’t pick them up, if you’re not sensing, if you’re not monitoring things — that increases exponentially and poses a threat not just to Europe, but also to the United States in that regard,” O’Donnell said.

NATO militaries have a range of tools for anti-submarine operations, including frigates, other submarines, helicopters, and other patrol aircraft, and some allies have recently invested in acquiring additional capabilities.

Last month, European nations participated in NATO’s Arctic Dolphin 26 exercise off the coast of Norway, with defense of the North Atlantic and GIUK gap top of mind.

There are, however, other reasons behind NATO’s expanded footprint in the North Atlantic beyond just the Russian naval concerns, O’Donnell and Andersen acknowledged.

The back-to-back accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO, which was triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, increased the number of Arctic states within the alliance from five to seven. Helsinki and Stockholm brought more troops, ships, and aircraft into the alliance’s Arctic defense.


A US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft provides aerial refueling to a US Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft assigned to US Air Naval Station Keflavik Base, Iceland, over the North Sea region, Royal Air Force Mildenhall, England, June 21, 2023.

NATO militaries, including the US, use P-8 Poseidon aircraft to monitor Russian naval activity.

US Air Force photo by Senior Airman Viviam Chiu



O’Donnell also said that alliance activity in the North Atlantic has increased since December, when JFC Norfolk — NATO’s newest joint force command — added Finland, Sweden, and Denmark to its area of responsibility. It now leads the alliance’s new Arctic Sentry deterrence operation.

More generally, there is a greater understanding among NATO states that the North Atlantic and Arctic regions are becoming more strategically valuable, making it critical for allies to maintain a strong deterrent posture there, Andersen said.

The region is full of natural resources, and melting sea ice is creating new trade routes. To prevent Russia and China from gaining military and economic influence in the High North to the detriment of alliance states, NATO’s leadership wants allies to continue prioritizing Arctic security.

One of the key benefits of Arctic Sentry, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said last month, is that “we now have a one Arctic approach, where allies synchronise activities, enhance and expand regular presence throughout the region.”

“It is bringing together what you already have, and adding on top, based on a gap assessment, what we need to do more,” Rutte said.




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The US is temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian oil, a key pressure point for the Kremlin’s war chest

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The US Treasury Department is lifting Russian oil sanctions until April 11, as the Trump administration seeks to relieve global crude supplies choked by war in the Middle East.

A notice issued by the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Thursday laid out a roughly four-week window authorizing the “sale, delivery, or offloading of crude oil or petroleum products” from Russia.

The move eases a yearslong effort by the US and its allies to squeeze Russia’s finances in response to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Moscow, however, has still benefited from its energy trade — taxing the industry typically accounted for nearly half of its federal budget revenues before 2022 — by quietly transporting it via what the West has called a “shadow fleet” of third-party tankers.

An analysis from Urgewald, a German NGO, showed Russia’s fossil fuel export revenues averaged 510 million euros, or $587 million per day in the week following the strikes — 14% higher than the daily average in February daily average.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday that Russia stood to benefit from the temporary lifting of sanctions, but described the gains as limited in scale.

“This narrowly tailored, short-term measure applies only to oil already in transit and will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government, which derives the majority of its energy revenue from taxes assessed at the point of extraction,” he wrote in a post on X.

Brent crude oil prices were 0.6% higher at $101.07 per barrel at 11:16 p.m. on Thursday while US West Texas Intermediate was 0.4% higher at $96.15 per barrel.

The US and Israel launched a massive airstrike campaign against Iran on February 28, attacking over 5,500 targets with land, sea, and air assets. Iran has, in turn, vowed to block the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway serving the Persian Gulf, which accounts for about a fifth of the world’s crude oil.

Traffic in the strait has plummeted in the past week amid over a dozen reports of commercial vessels being attacked in its vicinity.

Despite sweeping Western sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has reoriented much of its energy exports away from Europe and toward alternative partners in Asia, notably China and India, where discounted Russian crude has become a major source of demand.

Last week, the US granted a temporary 30-day waiver to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil.

Ukraine and its allies have long raised concerns about Russia’s ability to muster resources from its global energy trade to feed its war manufacturing industry. The Kremlin is now spending record amounts of its federal budget on defense, reaching 6.3% of its GDP in 2025.

Daily revenues of $610 million would be the equivalent of 12,000 to 30,000 of Russia’s Shahed-136 one-way attack drones, based on estimates that the loitering munitions cost $20,000 to $50,000 each.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned Iran that continuing to impede traffic along the strait would incur further US military action.

But Tehran has maintained a defiant posture, retaliating with drone and missile attacks on its neighbors and US forces in the region. Reports say it’s also begun to sparsely lay mines along the strait, which would further delay an opening of the strait by forcing the US and its allies to meticulously sweep for and clear explosives.

On Thursday, the new Iranian supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, issued a statement through a newscaster that his government would continue blocking the strait.




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Millions of student-loan borrowers are kicked off of Biden’s key affordable repayment plan in a surprise court reversal

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The roller coaster ride for borrowers enrolled in a key affordable repayment plan continues.

On Monday, the 8th Circuit directed a district court to approve President Donald Trump’s proposed settlement with the state of Missouri to eliminate the SAVE student-loan repayment plan.

The plan has been embroiled in a legal back-and-forth for years. Most recently, a district court declined to rule on the proposed settlement, which some advocates and lawmakers saw as a win for borrowers and urged the Department of Education to carry out relief under SAVE.

However, the 8th Circuit’s ruling means that, once approved, the department will move forward with the settlement and require enrolled borrowers to transition to a new plan.

“In the coming weeks, the Department will issue clear guidance on next steps for borrowers enrolled in the illegal SAVE Plan, including details regarding how borrowers can move into a legal repayment plan,” Nicholas Kent, the undersecretary of education, told Business Insider in a statement. “The Trump Administration will continue to realign the federal student loan portfolio to better serve students and taxpayers.”

The settlement would give borrowers “a limited time” to select a new repayment plan and begin repaying the loans. Once the settlement is approved, the department will not enroll any new borrowers in SAVE, it will deny pending applications, and move all enrolled borrowers to existing plans.

Advocates criticized the 8th Circuit’s ruling, saying it will push borrowers into unaffordable monthly payments.

“The millions of borrowers who had a right to lower monthly student loan payments and relief through SAVE will now face thousands of dollars in higher bills every year thanks to the right-wing campaign against borrowers,” Winston Berkman-Breen, legal director at advocacy group Protect Borrowers, said in a statement.

SAVE was created by former President Joe Biden in 2023 and intended to give borrowers cheaper monthly payments and a shorter timeline to debt relief. The plan has been blocked since the summer of 2024 due to litigation from GOP-led states, including Missouri, which said that the relief through SAVE was unconstitutional.

This ruling pushes SAVE borrowers off the plan earlier than scheduled. Trump’s “big beautiful” spending legislation called for the plan to be phased out by 2028, giving enrolled borrowers more time to prepare for higher payments on a new plan.

Have a story to share? Contact this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.




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Ayelet Sheffey

Trump’s attempt to quickly axe a key affordable student-loan repayment plan gets shut down in court

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Student-loan borrowers might not lose a key affordable repayment plan just yet.

On Friday, a court dismissed a proposed settlement announced by the Department of Education and the state of Missouri in December that would have eliminated the SAVE income-driven repayment plan ahead of schedule.

President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful” spending legislation called for phasing out SAVE by 2028. This latest update means that the department has to stick with that timeline, and it cannot eliminate the plan before 2028 without court approval or a lengthy negotiated rulemaking process.

John Ross, Missouri’s district court judge, wrote in his ruling that the settlement was not presented to the court, and that federal law allows courts to “exercise jurisdiction only over cases or controversies,” which he said does not exist in this case because both the Department of Education and Missouri have agreed on the outcome they’re seeking without debate.

“It appears that there is no longer a live case or controversy sufficient to authorize the Court to enter a judgment on the merits,” Ross wrote.

The SAVE plan was created by former President Joe Biden in 2023, and it intended to give borrowers cheaper monthly payments with a shorter timeline to loan forgiveness. The plan has been halted since 2024 due to lawsuits seeking to block it, and while Trump’s “big beautiful” spending legislation included a provision to eliminate SAVE over the next few years, the settlement would have done so much sooner than anticipated.

Ross also wrote in a footnote that it’s “not lost on the Court that millions of borrowers who enrolled in the SAVE plan have patiently awaited clarity while this litigation has proceeded. However, that clarity must come from the Department of Education, and not from this Court, which is no longer empowered to weigh the merits of a case that is now moot.”

Winston Berkman-Breen, legal director at advocacy group Protect Borrowers, said in a statement that the court’s ruling means the department can now move forward with relief under the SAVE plan.

“As of today, not only is there no legal barrier to delivering those rights through the SAVE plan, but the Secretary has a legal obligation to do so,” Berkman-Breen said. “The U.S. Department of Education must immediately identify borrowers who are eligible to have their loans cancelled under SAVE and instruct their student loan servicers to cancel those loans.”

A Department of Education spokesperson told Business Insider that the department is evaluating the court’s decision.

The department said in December that, should the settlement be approved, it would not enroll any new borrowers in the SAVE plan, it would deny pending applications, and move the 7 million enrolled borrowers to other repayment plans. Those borrowers would have a limited time to prepare to make their payments.

Have a story to share? Contact this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.




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David Ellison has a message for Paramount staffers: tech is a key to winning

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Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison gave employees a shoutout after the media company roughly met Wall Street’s estimates in the fourth quarter.

“The progress we’ve made over the past 6+ months — from advancing our strategy to strengthening our portfolio and reorganizing our businesses to operate more efficiently and effectively — is a direct reflection of your hard work and commitment,” Ellison wrote in an email to staffers, which was viewed by Business Insider.

Ellison, who wants to turn his 114-year-old Hollywood studio into a tech-forward company, said in his memo that Paramount is focused on supercharging its tech and data capabilities.

“We recognize that in today’s highly competitive marketplace, sustainable growth depends not only on what people watch, but on the quality of the overall user experience,” Ellison wrote. “That’s why we are prioritizing investments in advanced technology and data capabilities to strengthen and differentiate our DTC offering. We are making meaningful investments across the company in innovation and technology, and we look forward to sharing more details in the coming months.”

That message comes weeks after Ellison made data a bigger part of Paramount by expanding the role of the company’s streaming data and insights team.

Paramount is planning to add short-form video to Paramount+ and is exploring ways to bring interactive features and user-generated content to its streamers, Business Insider previously reported.

In the memo, Ellison also emphasized storytelling, saying that he wants Paramount to be “the home for the industry’s leading creative talent.” While Ellison lured former Netflix original content executive Cindy Holland to run its streaming business, Paramount is losing star TV creator Taylor Sheridan to rival NBCUniversal when his contract expires.

Paramount’s biggest initiative is its quest to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which seems increasingly open to Ellison’s advances, even though it has a signed deal with Netflix.

Paramount’s results were roughly in line with analyst expectations in its latest quarter, the first full quarter since Ellison took the helm in early August. As expected, Paramount’s full-year revenue shrank for a second straight year to $28.89 billion, just under the estimate of $28.95 billion.

Paramount+ now has 78.9 million paid subscribers, up from 77.9 million last quarter and 4% higher than a year ago. Paramount’s product chief told employees that its flagship streamer added about 1 million customers on the first day it carried UFC rights in the US, Business Insider previously reported.

Read Ellison’s memo to Paramount employees here:

Team,
Today we held our 4th quarter and fiscal year-end earnings call, where we reviewed our performance and reinforced our commitment to executing against our strategy and roadmap. Anchored by our North Star priorities, we continue to drive measurable progress across all areas of the business and remain confident that we are on the right path to deliver sustained, long-term value for our shareholders.
First and foremost, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you. The progress we’ve made over the past 6+ months — from advancing our strategy to strengthening our portfolio and reorganizing our businesses to operate more efficiently and effectively — is a direct reflection of your hard work and commitment.
This shared commitment powers our primary focus here at Paramount: delivering exceptional storytelling. We want to be the home for the industry’s leading creative talent, ensuring they have the resources, platform and reach to bring their best stories to the broadest possible audience across film, television and streaming. Every decision we make — from capital allocation to operational priorities — is in service of this objective. And our increased investment in content creation reflects this commitment, with 11 films and 11 series greenlit since August and more to come.
We recognize that in today’s highly competitive marketplace, sustainable growth depends not only on what people watch, but on the quality of the overall user experience. That’s why we are prioritizing investments in advanced technology and data capabilities to strengthen and differentiate our DTC offering. We are making meaningful investments across the company in innovation and technology, and we look forward to sharing more details in the coming months.
One of our greatest strengths as a company is our ability to mobilize the entire ecosystem behind key priorities and events through our “Paramount One” initiative. We saw this clearly demonstrated with the launch of the UFC on Paramount+ in January. Every part of the organization — from CBS Sports to Pluto, marketing to ad sales — contributed to the promotion of this landmark partnership. This all-hands on deck mentality is a true force multiplier for the Company — and I know you’ve put the same firepower behind Survivor 50, premiering tonight on CBS!
I encourage you to review our shareholder letter for more details on our quarter and full fiscal year 2025 performance. A replay of the earnings call will be available shortly on our Investor Relations site.
I couldn’t be prouder of this team. Keep up the great work.
Let’s go!
Best,
David




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How Walmart and Google became key to the search for Nancy Guthrie

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In the search for Nancy Guthrie, authorities have relied not only on traditional investigative work but also on data trails tied to two of the world’s largest companies.

Google and Walmart have both emerged as significant players in the high-profile investigation, assisting local Arizona law enforcement and the FBI as they work to locate the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie.

Authorities believe that Nancy Guthrie was abducted from her ranch-style home in the Catalina Foothills, just outside Tucson, AZ, nearly three weeks ago.

A major break in the case came more than a week into the elderly woman’s mysterious disappearance, thanks, in part, to the help of Google.

Initially, authorities said they were unable to retrieve any footage from Nancy Guthrie’s Google-owned Nest doorbell camera because she did not have a subscription to store her video feed.

That changed when investigators, working with “private sector partners,” managed to cover some doorbell footage from “residual data located in backend systems,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a previous statement on X.


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Police believe Nancy Guthrie was taken from her home on February 1.

Rebecca Noble/REUTERS



The footage, released widely to the public by the FBI on February 10, revealed a masked and armed man outside Nancy Guthrie’s home appearing to tamper with the doorbell camera on February 1, the day she vanished.

It took Google engineers several days to recover the footage, CNN has reported, citing a person familiar with the investigation. Google did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

The tech giant is attempting to obtain additional video from Nancy Guthrie’s other home cameras, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told NewsNation in a report published on Wednesday.

“We’ve asked Google, ‘Hey guys, can you do this?’ and they said the very same thing, ‘Sheriff, we don’t think we can get anything, but we’ll try,” Nanos said, adding that investigators remain “hopeful.

Meanwhile, authorities believe the backpack the suspect wore in the doorbell camera footage was a 25-liter “Ozark Trail Hiker” backpack sold exclusively at Walmart.

A spokeswoman for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said this week that investigators are working with Walmart management to “identify and isolate the individual who purchased the backpack.”

In an interview with CBS News, Nanos described the backpack as “one of the most promising leads” in the case.

The sheriff said investigators have been scouring surveillance footage from local Walmart stores and that the megaretailer has turned over records of all Ozark Trail Hiker backpack purchases from the last several months, the news outlet reported.

A Walmart spokesman declined to comment on the matter.


Video image of a person of interest in Nancy Guthrie disappearance.

The FBI released this image of a suspect in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.

FBI



So far, the only item that has been “positively identified” on the suspect in the doorbell camera footage is the Ozark Trail Hiker packpack, a Pima County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman said.

“Investigators are working to determine where the other items may have been purchased,” the spokeswoman said.

Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance has gripped the nation. Her famous daughter, Savannah Guthrie, has issued tearful video messages, pleading for her mother’s safe return.

Authorities have not publicly identified any suspects or persons of interest in the case.

DNA found at Nancy Guthrie’s property is being analyzed by investigators, the sheriff’s department said this week.

Earlier this week, Nanos, the sheriff, said the Guthrie family, including all siblings and spouses, has been cleared as possible suspects in the case.

“The family has been nothing but cooperative and gracious and are victims in this case,” Nanos said.




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Here are the key xAI figures who have departed in the recent exodus

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  • Elon Musk’s AI startup is facing a flurry of top employee departures.
  • The departures included xAI cofounders Jimmy Ba and Tony Wu, who both thanked Musk for the opportunity.
  • More than half of xAI’s cofounders have left the startup since Musk founded it in 2023.

xAI is facing an exodus of top employees.

Two cofounders and at least eight other employees have announced their departures from Elon Musk’s AI startup in the past few days, with the billionaire telling xAI’s workforce in a Tuesday all-hands that the company was restructuring as it continues to grow.

In a post on X, Musk wrote that xAI had been reorganized “to improve speed of execution.”

“This unfortunately required parting ways with some people,” he wrote, adding that xAI was still “hiring aggressively.”

It comes after Musk announced that xAI would merge with his rocket company, SpaceX, in a deal the billionaire said would help the joint entity build a network of AI data centers in Earth’s orbit. I

In the Tuesday all-hands, which was posted on X, Musk said the combined company would aim to build a “self-sustaining” city and a catapult, or mass driver, on the moon to launch AI data center satellites into space.

SpaceX is reportedly gearing up for a massive public offering later this year that could value the company at as much as $1.5 trillion. That could be a major boost for xAI, which reportedly burned through billions of dollars last year.

The departures are the latest turmoil to hit the startup since Musk founded xAI in 2023 with the aim of taking on Google and OpenAI.

Since then, around half of the company’s cofounders have left, and xAI has faced global backlash over sexual images of real people generated on X by Grok, the startup’s AI chatbot.

Here’s everyone who has left xAI in the company’s most recent exodus. Business Insider has contacted each of the following employees for comment.

Tony Wu

xAI cofounder Tony Wu announced his resignation from the company on February 9. In a post on X, the former Google researcher said it was time for his “next chapter” and thanked Musk for “the ride of a lifetime.”

Business Insider’s Grace Kay previously reported that Wu began reporting directly to Musk last year and led xAI’s reasoning efforts.

Jimmy Ba

Jimmy Ba became the second xAI cofounder to announce his departure from the company in less than 48 hours.

The executive, who previously oversaw the startup’s AI tutoring efforts, also thanked Musk for the opportunity and said he was proud of what xAI had accomplished in a post on X.

Ba’s departure means that six out of the 11 cofounders who launched xAI with Musk in 2023 have now left the company.

Hang Gao

Hang Gao, a member of technical staff, also announced in an X post on February 10 that he had left xAI.

The Berkeley alumnus, who worked on xAI’s Grok Imagine AI video generator, described his time at the company as “unique and memorable.”

Vahid Kazemi

Vahid Kazemi, a member of xAI’s technical staff, said on X on February 11 that he had left the company a few weeks prior. “That was short! IMO, all AI labs are building the exact same thing, and it’s boring. I think there’s room for more creativity,” he wrote, adding that he was starting “something new.”

Kazemi joined xAI last year and, before that, worked at OpenAI. He also previously worked at Google and Apple.

Ayush Jaiswal

Ayush Jaiswal worked on Grok at xAI and announced on February 6 that it was his last week at the company. “Will be taking a few months to spend time with family & tinker with AI,” he wrote in a post on X. Jaiswal joined xAI in September 2025, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that, he was head of growth at Scale AI.

Shayan Salehian

Shayan Salehian said on February 7 that he was leaving after a seven-year stint across Twitter and X to build something new.

He worked on the X timeline as well as various Grok models, he said in a post on X. He added that he is leaving to work on something “focused on accelerating science.”

“Working closely with Elon across X and xAI, I saw what happens when you refuse to accept impossible as an answer,” he wrote on X.

Simon Zhai

Simon Zhai, a member of the xAI technical staff, joined the company in October 2025 and announced his departure on February 9.

“Today is my last day at xAI, feeling very fortunate about the opportunity. It has been an amazing journey,” he wrote in a brief departure post on X. Before xAI, Zhai was a research scientist at Google DeepMind.

Andrew Ma

Member of technical staff Andrew Ma wrote in an X post on February 11 that he had left xAI this week.

Ma worked on X’s recommendation system and was “solely responsible” for writing a new version of the platform’s user search algorithm, according to his LinkedIn.

The former Twitter engineer praised xAI’s “wartime mentality” and thanked Musk for “creating this org that the world needs.”

Radhakrishnan Venkataramani

Radhakrishnan Venkataramani wrote in an X post on February 12 that he had left xAI this week.

The former Google and Facebook engineer joined xAI last July, per his LinkedIn, and worked on reasoning and reinforcement learning systems for Grok, as well as the company’s coding model.

In his farewell post, Venkataramani said he was “grateful” to have been part of xAI, calling the company “the most hardcore team ever.”

Rahul Ravishankar

Rahul Ravishankar, a member of technical staff at xAI, said February 13 was his last day at the company.

The Berkeley graduate, who joined Musk’s AI startup last year, wrote on X that leaving xAI was “one of the hardest decisions” he had ever made.




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