Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence venture xAI has seen a wave of departures, with two co-founders stepping down within 24 hours, raising concerns about the company’s stability and long-term direction. Jimmy Ba, a key research and safety lead, announced his exit on X, expressing gratitude for helping to co-found the company. His departure follows closely after fellow co-founder Yuhai (Tony) Wu’s resignation, marking the second high-profile exit in just two days. This rapid exodus comes amid broader turmoil at xAI, which merged with Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX in a landmark all-stock deal valued at $1 trillion for SpaceX and $250 billion for xAI. The departures are particularly significant given that more than half of xAI’s original founding team has now left the company. Other former co-founders, including Igor Babuschkin, Kyle Kosic, Christian Szegedy, and Greg Yang—whose departure was previously announced due to health issues—have also exited. The recent exits have sparked speculation about internal challenges, with several departing engineers citing a desire for greater autonomy, smaller teams, and more creative freedom. Many are reportedly starting new ventures together, including Roland Gavrilescu, who launched Nuraline, and others who have announced plans to “start something new.” The exodus coincides with mounting regulatory scrutiny. xAI’s Grok AI chatbot and image generator have been implicated in the mass creation and distribution of non-consensual explicit deepfakes, including images of real women and children. French authorities recently raided X’s offices as part of an investigation into these practices. The controversy has intensified as xAI prepares for a potential IPO, now under the SpaceX umbrella, and faces probes across Europe, Asia, and the U.S. Meanwhile, Musk is under personal scrutiny after Justice Department documents revealed he had extensive communications with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in 2012 and 2013. The revelations have added to the public and political pressure on Musk and his companies. Despite the leadership shake-up, xAI maintains a workforce of over 1,000 employees, so immediate operational impact is limited. However, the loss of core founders and the speed of the departures have fueled online speculation, with users jokingly announcing their own “resignations” from xAI—a sign of how quickly the narrative of a mass exodus has gained traction on Musk’s X platform. The departures highlight deeper concerns about governance, mission clarity, and institutional stability in frontier AI. As competition intensifies between xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, the ability to retain top talent and maintain credibility becomes critical. While Musk continues to consolidate his AI ambitions under SpaceX, the rapid loss of co-founders raises questions about whether the company can sustain the innovation and trust needed to compete at the highest levels. In the wake of these events, several former employees have shared positive reflections on their time at xAI, praising the team’s ambition and craftsmanship. Yet the trend underscores a growing unease among engineers about the pace, culture, and direction of large-scale AI projects. As the AI race accelerates, the stability of its most prominent players may depend not just on technical prowess, but on leadership, ethics, and organizational health.