xAI loses its final two co-founders

The original founding team of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, has undergone a complete turnover. Earlier this month, it looked like all but two of Elon Musk’s 11 co-founders at his AI startup xAI had departed the company. Now, according to reports from Business Insider on Wednesday, the remaining two co-founders, Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen, have left the company as well. Business Insider reported that Kroiss told people he is leaving xAI, and subsequently reported that Nordeen left the company on Friday. With both executives now gone, none of the original 11 co-founders remain at the startup, marking a complete turnover of the original founding team.

These high-level departures coincide with a broader restructuring of the company. Musk recently claimed that xAI “was not built right [the] first time around” and stated that the startup is “being rebuilt from the foundations up.” This rebuilding effort follows the acquisition of xAI by SpaceX, another of Musk’s corporate entities. The acquisition brings SpaceX, xAI, and X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) together under a single corporate umbrella. This consolidation comes at a time when SpaceX is reportedly planning to go public, suggesting that the leadership changes are part of a larger corporate alignment.

Both Kroiss and Nordeen reported directly to Musk and held critical operational roles within the startup. Kroiss led xAI’s pretraining team, which is the team responsible for the initial training phase of AI models. Nordeen, described by Business Insider as Musk’s “right-hand operator,” reportedly joined xAI from Tesla. Nordeen was also reportedly involved in planning major layoffs at Twitter after Musk acquired the social media platform in 2022. The departures of these key direct reports leave Musk to rebuild the startup’s leadership structure from scratch as the company integrates with SpaceX and X. TechCrunch has reached out to xAI for comment regarding the departures.

Why it matters

The departure of the final two co-founders of xAI follows the company’s recent acquisition by SpaceX and Musk’s stated intent to rebuild the AI startup from the foundations up.