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And then there were none: Musk’s last xAI cofounder, Ross Nordeen, leaves

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The last of Elon Musk’s original team of xAI cofounders has cleared out.

Ross Nordeen, one of the 11 who helped build the company alongside Elon Musk, left the company this week, according to people with knowledge of his departure. Nordeen has also lost the badge on X that identifies him as an xAI employee.

His exit comes as Musk reorganizes xAI and preps for a blockbuster initial public offering of his rocket company SpaceX, which acquired the artificial intelligence startup in February.

The 36-year-old Nordeen reported directly to Musk at xAI and served as his right-hand operator, coordinating priorities and driving execution across the company, insiders said.

Nordeen, a Michigan Tech grad, followed Musk from Tesla to cofound the AI startup in 2023. At Tesla, Nordeen was a technical program manager on the Autopilot team and worked on building out data centers to train Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system, according to a 2021 organizational chart viewed by Business Insider.

Nordeen is a longtime friend of Musk’s cousin, James Musk, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of the billionaire. Nordeen was also one of a few dozen Tesla and SpaceX engineers who helped Musk coordinate large-scale cuts at Twitter after he took over the company in 2022.

Representatives for xAI and Nordeen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Elon Musk’s AI ambitions

XAI has lost eight cofounders since January, including Manuel Kroiss, Guodong Zhang, Zihang Dai, Toby Pohlen, Jimmy Ba, Tony Wu, and Greg Yang. Kroiss, who led pretraining, which helps train the company’s AI models on large datasets and reported directly to Musk, left earlier this week.

Most of the departures began shortly after SpaceX’s merger with xAI ahead of the IPO that could be the most valuable in history.

In February, Musk reorganized xAI and unveiled a new structure. Since then, many of the leaders Musk put in charge of key projects — from the company’s coding tool to image generation — have left the company.

XAI has gone through several restructurings since and has been in flux, shedding dozens of employees over the course of the last few months after the company cut portions of its teams working on its video and image generation tool, Grok Imagine, and Macrohard, its AI agent project earlier this year.

The company is one of the best-funded players in the AI race and has reached a reported valuation of around $250 billion, but it trails behind major players like OpenAI and Anthropic when it comes to scale and reach.

Musk said earlier this month that “xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up.”

He has also said the company is actively recruiting new talent and looking at candidates who were previously passed over. The company has brought on nearly a dozen recruits in the last few weeks, including two senior leaders from AI coding company Cursor, Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg.

Do you work for xAI or have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at gkay@businessinsider.com or Signal at 248-894-6012. Use a personal email address, a nonwork device, and nonwork WiFi; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.




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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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Katherine Li, West Coast breaking news reporter at the Business Insider.

3 takeaways from Elon Musk’s xAI all-hands, from a moon city to a company restructuring

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XAI just had its first all-hands meeting since its merger with SpaceX.

In the recorded event on Tuesday night, CEO Elon Musk outlined a new organizational structure — the main Grok product and Grok Voice, Grok Code, Grok Imagine, and the company’s Macrohard project. The all-hands was later posted on X on Wednesday.

From a plan to build a catapult, or mass driver, on the moon to soothing nerves after the restructuring, here are the main takeaways from xAI’s latest all-hands meeting.

1. Addressing the restructure

There are now only six members left of an original founding team of 12 at xAI, following two more exits earlier this week.

Musk addressed the new restructuring.

“Because we’ve reached a certain scale, we’re organizing the company to be more effective at this scale,” said Musk. “Now, naturally, when this happens, there are some people who are better suited for the early stages of a company and less suited for the later stages.”

On Monday, Tony Wu announced his resignation in a post on X, writing that it was “time for my next chapter.” Less than 24 hours later, fellow cofounder Jimmy Ba followed suit, posting that Tuesday was his last day and thanking Musk for “bringing us together on this incredible journey.”

2. Shooting from the moon

Musk is promising the moon, literally.

“Ultimately, we see a path to maybe launching as much as a terawatt per year of compute from earth, but what if you want to go beyond a mere terawatt per year?” said Musk. “In order to do that, you have to go to the moon.”

His goal is to launch AI sattelites from the moon, he told employees.

“I can’t imagine anything more epic than a mass driver on the moon and a self-sustaining city on the moon, and then going beyond the moon to Mars, going throughout our solar system, and ultimately being out there among the stars and visiting all these star systems,” Musk added. “Maybe we’ll meet aliens.”

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is also researching the feasability of data centers in space, citing limited resources on Earth, such as water and electricity. Data centers are already facing backlash for driving up utility costs for average households.

3. Product updates and launches

A stand-alone app for XChat and a new transaction app called X Money are coming in the next few months, according to Musk.

During the all-hands meeting, Musk said that users who only want to use the messaging function could use the standalone XChat app without visiting the X platform. He said the app will also be on desktop and can handle multi-user video calls.

“For XMoney, we actually had XMoney live in closed beta within the company, and we expect in the next month or two to go to a limited external beta and then to go worldwide to all X users,” said Musk.

“And this is really intended to be the place where all the money is, the central source of all monetary transactions,” Musk added. “So it’s really going to be a game changer.”




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Elon Musk’s xAI loses second cofounder in 48 hours

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XAI cofounder Jimmy Ba said he left Elon Musk’s startup on Tuesday.

“It’s time to recalibrate my gradient on the big picture. 2026 is gonna be insane and likely the busiest (and most consequential) year for the future of our species,” Ba wrote on X.

Ba reported directly to Musk. He ran a large portion of the company until late last year, when several of his responsibilities were split between two other cofounders, Tony Wu and Guodong Zhang, people with knowledge of the move told Business Insider.

Ba also previously ran the team that oversaw more than a thousand AI tutors, according to an org chart from earlier last year. That role was given to Diego Pasini in September, Business Insider previously reported.

Ba is the second cofounder to depart the company in less than 48 hours. Wu announced he’d resigned from the AI startup on Monday night. Wu’s Slack account was deactivated shortly before the announcement, Business Insider previously reported.

Ahead of Wu’s departure, xAI underwent another restructuring, and several of his responsibilities were shifted under Zhang.

Musk launched the AI company in 2023 with 11 other founders. Six have now left the company — five of them within the last year.

In addition to his work at xAI, Ba is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto in the computer science department. He received his Ph.D. from the school while studying under Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton, often referred to as the “godfather of AI.”

Musk has said he built xAI as an alternative to what he’s called “woke” chatbots, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Over the past year, the company has become known for pushing the envelope. Last July, xAI launched a sexy digital avatar called “Ani,” and its Grok chatbot went on an antisemitic rant.

Most recently, xAI has come under fire after Grok began generating nonconsensual sexual images of real people in response to X user prompts. The backlash eventually prompted the company to restrict Grok’s image-generation features on X.

Last week, Musk announced that xAI would merge with his rocket company, SpaceX. The company is reportedly gearing up for an initial public offering this year that could value SpaceX at $1.5 trillion.

Ba and xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Do you work for xAI or have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at gkay@businessinsider.com or Signal at 248-894-6012. Use a personal email address, a nonwork device, and nonwork WiFi; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.




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XAI shares Q&A with staff on what they can expect from the SpaceX merger

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XAI told workers the company won’t be changing its name anytime soon, even after it announced SpaceX had acquired the company on Monday.

In a Q&A sent to employees on Monday, the company said xAI’s mission remains “unchanged” and that its price-to-share valuation will remain the same. Workers will soon learn more about how the acquisition will impact their equity, according to the Q&A.

The joint venture is still continuing to prepare for a “possible IPO in 2026,” according to the memo.

“Whether it actually happens, when it happens, and at what valuation are still highly uncertain,” it said.

SpaceX, which Musk founded in 2002, has reportedly been gearing up for an initial public offering that could value it at $1.5 trillion.

SpaceX and xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

XAI plans to hold an all-hands in the coming days and host trainings related to the merger, the internal memo said. For now, both companies will maintain their separate branding, but the company “will be looking at how this might change in the future,” it said.

Despite the acquisition, xAI staff will not be allowed to access internal SpaceX databases or collaborate directly with workers at the rocket ship company without direct approval, the memo said. The companies will be kept separate due to regulations that control the sharing of defense and space-related technology that could impact national security. SpaceX workers may be allowed access to xAI internal tools, it said.

SpaceX and xAI CEO Elon Musk sent a memo to staff earlier on Monday announcing the acquisition. In the email, which was later shared online, he said the merger would allow the joint venture to eventually launch data centers in space.

He wrote that the deal would create “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform.”

Last year, Musk announced that xAI merged with his social media company, X.

Do you work for xAI or have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at gkay@businessinsider.com or Signal at 248-894-6012. Use a personal email address, a non-work device, and non-work WiFi; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.




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California sends xAI cease-and-desist letter, saying it must stop allowing sexualized deepfake images of minors

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  • California sent xAI a cease-and-desist letter, demanding it stop allowing deefake images of minors.
  • Elon Musk’s xAI faces sustained criticism over Grok’s ability to create nonconsensual sexualized images.
  • The letter, sent by AG Rob Bonta, threatens legal action if the deepfakes continue to be permitted.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has demanded that xAI prevent its chatbot, Grok, from continuing to create sexualized deepfake images of children.

Bonta’s office sent a cease-and-desist letter to Elon Musk’s AI startup on Friday after sustained criticism over the bot’s ability to create nonconsensual sexualized images, including those of minors.

Earlier this week, X said that it implemented restrictions on Grok.

“We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis,” X’s safety account said in a blog post on the platform on Wednesday. “This restriction applies to all users, including paid subscribers.”

However, that didn’t stop the X or Grok app from creating sexualized images, Business Insider’s Henry Chandonnet found on Thursday.

Representatives for the CA Attorney General’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

In an automated response to Business Insider, xAI said, “Legacy Media Lies.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.




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Ashley St. Clair sues Elon Musk’s xAI over alleged explicit Grok deepfake images

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Ashley St. Clair, who gave birth to one of Elon Musk’s sons in 2024, sued Musk’s xAI in a New York court on Thursday, alleging that its chatbot Grok generated sexually explicit deepfake images of her at users’ request.

In the complaint, St. Clair, a writer, influencer, and political strategist, claims X users prompted Grok to manipulate images of her, including photos from when she was 14, into graphic sexual content. She alleges some images remained online for more than a week and that her premium X account was later terminated after she complained.

She is also requesting a temporary restraining order to compel xAI to immediately cease from “the intentional disclosure of nonconsensual intimate images.”

xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Grok first promised Ms. St. Clair that it would refrain from manufacturing more images unclothing her,” the complaint read. “Instead, Defendant retaliated against her, demonetizing her X account and generating multitudes more images of her,” the suit alleged.

St. Clair is also involved in a separate suit with Musk over the custody of their son, in which she sought sole custody.

xAI responded the same day with a separate lawsuit, arguing that St. Clair agreed to its terms of service, which requires any litigation to be heard in Texas. St. Clair is represented by attorney Carrie Goldberg, who specializes in cases involving abuse and has represented clients against Harvey Weinstein.

“xAI is not a reasonably safe product,” Goldberg said in a statement to Business Insider. “This harm flowed directly from deliberate design choices that enabled Grok to be used as a tool of harassment and humiliation. Companies should not be able to escape responsibility when the products they build predictably cause this kind of harm.”

The lawsuit followed international backlash against the Grok chatbot for its ability to undress images of real people and create sexualized images without their consent at users’ request.

Indonesia and Malaysia blocked access to Grok, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called explicit images generated by Grok “disgusting” and “shameful” in a meeting with the House of Commons.

On Wednesday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta also announced that his office is investigating the “non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online” of “women and children in nude and sexually explicit situations.”

X said on the same day in a blog post that users would no longer be allowed to create AI photos of real people in sexualized or revealing clothing on the platform, adding that the restriction “applies to all users, including paid subscribers.”

As of Thursday morning, Business Insider reporter Henry Chandonnet found that it is still “surprisingly easy” to prompt Grok to create nude images of him by going to the app itself instead of using the Grok chatbot on X.




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