xAI co-founders Jimmy Ba, Tony Wu join exodus from Musk's AI startup

By Carmen Arroyo

 

Jimmy Ba and Tony Wu, two of the co-founders of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI, both said they were leaving the company after less than three years, meaning half of its founding members have now departed.

 

Wu announced his exit Monday in a post on X, without saying in the statement what he would be doing next. Ba followed a day later, saying it was his last day at xAI. Both thanked Musk in their posts.

 

“It’s time to recalibrate my gradient on the big picture,” Ba posted on the Musk-owned social network on Tuesday. “2026 is gonna be insane and likely the busiest (and most consequential) year for the future of our species.”

 

Ba and Wu both went to the University of Toronto, and Wu previously worked at Alphabet Inc.’s Google. They were two of the 12 original xAI co-founders, including Musk, who launched the company in 2023. They are the fifth and sixth from that group to exit in the past two years. Kyle Kosic left in 2024, followed by Igor Babuschkin and Christian Szegedy last year. Greg Yang, another co-founder, said last month that he would step back from his role after being diagnosed with Lyme disease. 

 

“It’s time for my next chapter,” Wu said Monday in his post. “It is an era with full possibilities: a small team armed with AIs can move mountains and redefine what’s possible.” 

 

Both Wu and Ba announced their departures following xAI’s recent merger with SpaceX, a move that valued the combined company at $1.25 trillion, Bloomberg News reported. The deal could ease a funding crunch for xAI, which has been raising large sums of capital as it burns through cash in its bid to build out data centers, buy expensive computing chips and pay for talent.