Elon Musk said earlier this month that xAI "was not built right first time around." That admission came from a CEO who rarely apologizes and almost never concedes failure in public. It landed as the most honest assessment anyone at xAI had offered in months, because Ross Nordeen walked out on Friday, and he was the eleventh cofounder to leave. Every researcher Musk assembled in 2023 to build his challenger to OpenAI and Anthropic is gone. Eight of them since January alone.

The company carries a $250 billion valuation. None of them stayed.

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Harkaram Grewal

Harkaram Grewal

New Delhi

Maps the India–Germany–U.S. AI triangle from New Delhi. Background in cross-market operations and business development. Writes about supply chains, enterprise adoption, and talent—the unsexy forces that actually move global AI.