Musk’s xAI sees exit of last cofounder Ross Nordeen: Report

Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI has seen the departure of its remaining two cofounders, Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen, according to a report by Business Insider on Friday.

The exits follow the earlier departures of cofounders Zihang Dai and Guodong Zhang, who left the company earlier this month after a reported conflict with Musk.

With the exit of the last remaining cofounder, Ross Nordeen, all eleven cofounders have now exited the company. Kroiss had informed the team of his plans to step down, the report said, while Nordeen exited the company on Friday.


Toby Pohlen, Jimmy Ba, Tony Wu, and Greg Yang are among those who have stepped down since January.

Both Kroiss and Nordeen reported directly to Musk, who recently acknowledged internal challenges, stating that xAI “was not built right the first time around” and is now being rebuilt from the ground up.


The developments come amid broader strategic shifts at xAI, which was recently acquired by SpaceX as part of Musk’s long-term plans to take the combined entity public.

Kroiss previously led the company’s pre-training team, while Nordeen had been involved in operational planning, including workforce restructuring efforts following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter in 2022.

Also Read: Musk ousts more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters, FT reports