The SpaceXAI Exodus: More Than 50 Recent Exits as Meta, Thinking Machines Hire Staff
Call it the SpaceXAI exodus.
The Takeaway
- More than 50 researchers and engineers have left SpaceXAI since February
- Meta Platforms and Thinking Machines Lab hire former SpaceXAI staff
- SpaceXAI’s pretraining team has shrunk to a handful of people
More than 50 researchers and engineers working on xAI’s Grok models have left the AI lab since SpaceX acquired it in February, through layoffs, firings and voluntary departures, according to several people with knowledge of the moves. These departures come on top of the exits of all of xAI’s co-founders besides Elon Musk.
The most recent turnover has coincided with big changes at the AI group that also include the installation of new leadership from SpaceX, an unconventional deal to potentially buy coding startup Cursor and Anthropic taking on all the compute capacity at one of xAI’s two gigantic data centers.
Just this month, the leaders of teams working on coding, world models and Grok voice mode have left xAI—which Musk renamed SpaceXAI earlier this month, according to people with knowledge of the moves. Each leader had been with the company for less than a year.
More than 200 researchers worked at xAI as of late last year, according to a person with knowledge of the figure, but that number has decreased this year.
As of early May, SpaceXAI’s pretraining team was down to a handful of people, following exits including that of pretraining lead Juntang Zhuang, according to the people with knowledge of the moves. Pretraining is the critical first step in creating a new AI model. The changes this year have led some people in and around SpaceXAI to question whether it’s still committed to developing leading models, though Musk has said it’s still doing so.
Certainly, turnover among highly sought-after researchers is common at top AI labs—last year, xAI sued OpenAI for poaching its employees in a lawsuit that a federal judge tossed out in February. But people who have worked at SpaceXAI say the pace of departures has heightened this year, contributing to low morale that has made hiring more difficult.
In March, Musk said xAI hadn’t been “built right” and was “being rebuilt,” just weeks after SpaceX acquired it at a valuation of $250 billion. In May, he said xAI would be “dissolved as a separate company” and renamed it SpaceXAI. Staff from Cursor and SpaceX have been spending time at xAI’s offices speaking with employees about their work in recent weeks.
One factor that has likely contributed to turnover at the AI lab is a culture of extreme overwork under Musk, according to people who have worked at SpaceXAI. During some periods of time when he has been especially focused on the AI lab, he would require teams to meet with him seven days per week in the lab’s Palo Alto, Calif., offices, two of the people said. Musk also set deadlines for training models that some staff considered unrealistic, leading teams to cut corners that could hurt the performance of Grok models, one of the people said.
Musk’s harsh leadership style has been a point of contention in his ongoing legal case against OpenAI, which he funded for years before founding xAI in 2023. During testimony on Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman accused Musk of doing “huge damage” to OpenAI by requiring leaders to stack rank researchers and “take a chainsaw through a bunch” of them.
Many of the recent job moves have not been previously reported, though some have been announced on social media. SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.
Meta and Thinking Machines Hiring
Dozens of former xAI staff are on the job market, but many have landed at either Meta Platforms or Thinking Machines Lab.
Meta has hired at least 11 researchers and engineers from xAI since February, according to people with knowledge of the moves. Thinking Machines has hired at least seven people over the same period, the people said, bringing the Mira Murati–led startup’s total headcount to over 150.
Two other former SpaceXAI researchers have joined MiroMind, an AI startup founded by Chinese billionaire entrepreneur Chen Tianqiao. One of the hires, Beibin Li, briefly led SpaceXAI’s coding team before leaving the company in recent weeks.
Anthropic has also hired at least two former xAI employees this year, including xAI co-founder Ross Nordeen, who worked on its infrastructure efforts. Nordeen announced he would join Anthropic on the same day Anthropic announced its deal with SpaceXAI. He was the only member of its founding team besides Musk left at the company.
Outside of researchers and AI engineers, other notable xAI departures since February include Chief Financial Officer Anthony Armstrong and several leaders on its data center and AI tutor teams.