Elon Musk’s last co-founder reportedly leaves xAI

Earlier this month, it appeared that all but two of Elon Musk’s 11 co-founders of his AI startup xAI had left the company. According to Business Insider, the other two co-founders, Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen, have now also left.

BI said Wednesday that Kroiss had done so told people he’s leaving xAIsubsequently reported this Nordeen left the company on Friday.

Musk recently claimed that xAI “wasn’t built right [the] first time,” so it is now being “rebuilt from the foundation up.” The company was recently acquired by Musk’s SpaceX, creating SpaceX, xAI and X (formerly Twitter) together under one corporate umbrella, all as SpaceX reportedly plans to go public.

Kroiss and Nordeen both reported directly to Musk, BI said, with Kroiss leading the company’s pre-training team while Nordeen was Musk’s “right-hand operator.” Nordeen reportedly came to xAI from Tesla and was involved in planning major layoffs at Twitter after Musk acquired the company in 2022.

TechCrunch has contacted xAI for comment.