With the departure of its last co-founder this week, xAI, the artificial intelligence company founded by Musk with an 11-person team in 2023, has completed a thorough personnel purge.
According to Business Insider on Saturday, sources familiar with the matter revealed that Ross Nordeen left this week, and his verification badge identifying him as an xAI employee on the X platform has been removed. This marks the official entry of the AI startup, valued at approximately $250 billion, into its rebuilding phase.
Nordeen, 36, reported directly to Musk at xAI, serving as his right-hand man, responsible for coordinating company priorities and driving execution, making him one of Musk's core operational pillars within the company.
Nordeen's departure occurred after xAI and SpaceX completed their merger in February of this year. Musk stated publicly earlier this month, &#34;xAI was not built correctly initially, so it is being rebuilt from the ground up.&#34; This statement provides an official endorsement for the large-scale personnel upheaval.
<h2>All Co-Founders Depart, Merger Triggers Wave of Departures</h2>
Since January of this year, xAI has successively lost eight co-founders, including Manuel Kroiss, Guodong Zhang, Zihang Dai, Toby Pohlen, Jimmy Ba, Tony Wu, and Greg Yang. Among them, Manuel Kroiss, who was responsible for pre-training operations and reported directly to Musk, left just days before Nordeen's departure.
Most departures occurred around the merger of SpaceX and xAI. This merger is seen as a significant move in SpaceX's preparations for an IPO—once this listing plan is executed, it could become one of the largest IPOs in history.
Nordeen himself has a deep connection with Musk. According to the biography of Musk written by Walter Isaacson, he is a longtime friend of Musk's cousin, James Musk. He previously followed Musk from Tesla to found xAI. During his time at Tesla, he served as a Technical Program Manager for the Autopilot team and was involved in building the data centers used to train the Full Self-Driving system. After Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, Nordeen was among the dozens of Tesla and SpaceX engineers who helped lead the mass layoffs.
<h2>Continuous Tremors from Multiple Restructurings, Key Project Leaders Resign</h2>
Since announcing its new architecture in February, xAI has undergone several rounds of restructuring, with the company in a state of continuous turmoil. Musk had previously appointed leaders responsible for key projects, including those overseeing the company's programming tools and image generation business, all of whom have since resigned.
Concurrently, the company has laid off some team members involved in the video and image generation tool Grok Imagine, as well as the AI agent project Macrohard, resulting in the loss of dozens of employees over the past few months.
In terms of competitive landscape, although xAI is one of the most well-funded players in the AI field, it still lags behind major competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic in terms of scale and market coverage.
<h2>Musk Initiates Recruitment, Bringing in New External Talent</h2>
Despite the ongoing staff attrition, Musk stated that the company is actively recruiting new talent and reconsidering candidates who were previously not hired. Reports indicate that xAI has recently brought in nearly ten new employees in the past few weeks, including two senior executives from the AI programming company Cursor: Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg.
Musk has characterized this restructuring as a comprehensive correction of the company's underlying architecture. With the entire founding team now gone, the company, valued at approximately $250 billion, will face the next stage of competition with an entirely new personnel structure.

TSLL

TSLG

xAI is undergoing a major reshuffle. With the recent departure of its last co-founder, Ross Nordeen, all 11 members of its founding team are now gone. Musk admitted the company is being "rebuilt from the ground up." Following a deep personnel purge and restructuring turmoil, xAI is actively recruiting new external talent, aiming for a completely new structure and lineup to compete against AI giants

- Following the departure of its last co-founder this week, Elon Musk's AI company xAI has undergone a complete personnel overhaul.  
- Ross Nordeen, a key figure who reported directly to Musk, left amid a series of high-profile departures, which included eight other co-founders since January, triggered by xAI's merger with SpaceX.  
- Despite ongoing staff losses, Musk is actively recruiting new talent to reshape the company, which is valued at approximately $250 billion, as it prepares for the next phase of competition.

All "Co-Founders" Resign, Musk "Completely Restructures" xAI