Elon Musk Restructures xAI’s Divisions After Co-Founders Depart

Yuhuai (Tony) Wu and Jimmy Ba departed xAI on February 10-11, 2026, shortly after their responsibilities were restructured and reassigned to other team members. While neither explicitly stated their reasons, internal reports indicate xAI's leadership had overpromised technical developments to Musk, creating unreasonable demands on staff. Additionally, xAI faced public controversies including Grok generating non-consensual sexual imagery and previous antisemitic content. Ba, who reported directly to Musk and previously ran a large portion of the company, hinted at wanting to 'recalibrate' his focus on broader strategic goals. These departures bring the total to six of xAI's original 12 co-founders having left since the company's 2023 launch.

SpaceX's acquisition of xAI creates a combined entity valued at $1.25 trillion, with plans for a public offering as early as June 2026. This merger is central to Musk's vision of deploying AI data centers in space using SpaceX's satellite infrastructure and Tesla's Optimus robots to operate the facilities. The IPO is intended to raise capital to finance these ambitious space-based data center projects. However, the timing is challenging: the merged company must prepare for a massive public offering while simultaneously rebuilding technical leadership following the departure of half the founding team. The company is also under pressure to deliver financial results and compete with rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic.