The last remaining original co-founder of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, has left the firm. Ross Nordeen, one of the 11 individuals who helped establish the company alongside Musk in 2023, departed on Friday, according to sources familiar with the matter.
His exit coincides with a significant reorganisation at xAI and preparations for a blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) of Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, which acquired the AI startup in February of this year.
Key Figure in Musk's Operations
Nordeen, 36, reported directly to Musk at xAI, serving as a key operator who coordinated priorities and drove execution across the company. A graduate of Michigan Tech, he followed Musk from Tesla, where he was a technical program manager on the Autopilot team, to co-found the AI venture.
According to Walter Isaacson's biography of Musk, Nordeen is a longtime friend of the billionaire's cousin, James Musk. He was also among the dozens of Tesla and SpaceX engineers who assisted Musk with large-scale staff cuts at Twitter following its acquisition in 2022.
Widespread Leadership Exodus
Nordeen is the eighth xAI co-founder to leave since January, joining others such as Manuel Kroiss, who led pretraining, Guodong Zhang, and Jimmy Ba. Most departures began shortly after the SpaceX merger was announced ahead of what could be a historic IPO.
Following a structural overhaul unveiled by Musk in February, many leaders placed in charge of critical projects—from coding tools to image generation—have subsequently exited the company.
Ongoing Restructuring and Recruitment
The startup has undergone several restructurings, shedding dozens of employees in recent months after scaling back teams working on projects like the Grok Imagine video tool and the Macrohard AI agent.
Despite being one of the best-funded AI players with a reported valuation of around $250 billion, xAI trails behind major competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic in scale. Musk stated earlier this month that "xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up."
The company is now actively recruiting new talent, including nearly a dozen recent hires such as two senior leaders from AI coding firm Cursor, Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg. Representatives for xAI and Nordeen did not immediately respond to requests for comment.