At least nine engineers, incl two co-foundersnow publicly announced their departure from xAI last week – although two of those exits appear to have happened a few weeks ago.

Neither xAI nor Elon Musk have commented publicly on the departures.

While attrition is common in startups, co-founder departures are not. More than half of xAI’s founding team has now left, and the fact that more employees have followed within days has intensified scrutiny of the company’s stability.

Three of the departing employees said they would start a new one with other former xAI engineers, though details about the new venture were not available. Others have identified a desire for more autonomy and smaller teams to build frontier tech faster, pointing to the expected surge in AI productivity.

Yuhai (Tony) Wu, a co-founder of xAI and thought leader, said one post announced his resignation: “It’s time for my next chapter. It’s a time of full possibilities: a small team armed with AIs can move mountains and change what’s possible.”

Shayan Salehian, who worked on product infrastructure and model behavior after training at xAI and previously worked at Twitter/X, said last week he left to “start something new.”

Valid Kazemi, with short work in machine learning, posted on Tuesday which he left a few weeks ago, adding: “IMO, all AI labs are building the exact same thing, and it’s boring…So, I started something new.” Roland Gavrilescu, a former xAI engineer, left in November to start Nuraline, a company building “forward-deployed AI agents,” but posted again on Tuesday that he was leaving the company to build “a new one with others who left xAI.”

Departures come at a time of significant controversy for xAI. The company faces regulatory review after Grok created non-consensual explicit deepfakes of women and children that were broadcast on X – French authorities last week raided X office as part of the investigation. The company is also moving towards a planned IPO later this year, after all legally acquired by SpaceX last week.

Musk also faced personal controversy after files published by the Justice Department revealed lengthy conversations with convicted rapist and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The emails show Musk mentions a visit to Epstein’s island on two separate occasions, in 2012 and 2013. Epstein was first convicted of procuring a child for prostitution in 2008.

xAI maintains a headcount of more than 1,000 employeesso the departures are unlikely to affect the companies capabilities in the short term. However, the rapid pace of recent departures has taken on a life of its own online, with users jokingly announcing that they too were “leaving xAI” despite not having worked there yet – a sign of how easily the narrative of a “mass exodus” snowballed into Musk’s X.

However, co-founder exits are harder to dismiss as typical churn. As Musk continues to consolidate his AI ambitions, their departures raise broader questions about the management and long-term stability of xAI. In frontier AI, where talent is scarce, qualities like reputational gravity and mission clarity are important. The more pressing question may not be how many engineers are left, but whether xAI can maintain the institutional sophistication needed to compete with rivals like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

TechCrunch has reached out to xAI for more information.

Timeline of departure notices:

The following public employees announced their departure from xAI in X in recent days:

February 6: Ayush Jaiswalengineer, wrote: “This is my last week at xAI. Taking a few months to spend time with family and work together on AI.”

February 7: Shayan Salehianwho worked on product infrastructure and model behavior after training and previously at X, wrote: “I’m leaving xAI to start a new one, ending my 7+ year chapter working on Twitter, X, and xAI with great gratitude.” He added that working closely with Elon Musk taught him “obsessive attention to details, maniacal urgency, and to think from first principles.”

February 9: Simon ZhaiMTS (member of the technical staff), wrote: “Today is my last day at xAI, feel very lucky for the opportunity. It’s been an amazing journey.”

February 10: Yuhai (Tony) Wuco-founder and head of reasoning, wrote: “I resign. It’s time for my next chapter. This is a time of full possibilities: a small group armed with AIs can move mountains and change what is possible.”

February 10: Jimmy Baco-founder and research/safety lead, wrote: “Last day of xAI… We will reach the age of 100x productivity with the right tools. Recursive self improvement loops will probably live on for the next 12 months. Time to recalibrate my gradient on the big picture. 2026 could be crazy.”

February 10: Vahid Kazemian ML PhD, wrote that he left xAI “a few weeks ago,” adding: “IMO, all AI labs build the exact same thing, and it’s boring. I think there’s room for more creativity. So, I’m starting something new.”

February 10: Hang Gaowho has worked on multimodal efforts including Grok Imagine, wrote: “I’m leaving xAI today.” He described his time there as “truly rewarding,” citing contributions to Grok Imagine releases and praising the team’s “humble expertise and ambitious vision.”

February 10: Roland Gavrilescuthe engineer who left in November to start Nuraline, posted: “I left xAI. Building something new with others who left xAI. We’re hiring :)”

February 10: Chance Lee, a member of the Macrohard founding team, wrote: “Take a short reset then go back to the border.” (Macrohard is an AI-only software venture under xAI designed to fully automate software development, coding, and operations using Grok-powered, multi-agent systems. Its name is a dig at Microsoft.)

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