Live Footage of Elon in xAI’s headquarters this morning:

In case you were wondering how Elon’s week is going… his OpenAI copycat, xAI, just lost its SIXTH co-founder. Sixth. As in more than half of the original 12-person founding squad is now gone.

Jimmy Ba (who led research, safety, and enterprise) confirmed he’s out. Just days earlier, Tony Wu, the guy running xAI’s reasoning team, also bailed. A handful of other early architects have already drifted away. At this rate, the founding team reunion could fit inside a Tesla Model 3 with room for snacks.

xAI entered the chat in 2023 with a mission to “understand the true nature of the universe.” It just so happened that the universe included competing head-on with OpenAI… and its CEO, Sam “Trader” Altman.

(Source: The Decoder)

Sources say tension crept in as leadership promised big technical leaps in record time. Which sounds fine… until you remember Musk’s baseline expectation is literally bending gravity. When your CEO is literally trying to solve the world energy crisis by putting data centers in space and starting civilization on the moon in the next five years… there’s not much you can do to make him happy.

Meanwhile, back at xAI HQ, projects like “MacroHard” (yes, that’s the actual name) haven’t exactly hit Elon’s internal hype targets. It’s supposed to compete with OpenAI’s Codex and Anthropic’s Claude Code. Instead, it’s reportedly competing with Elon’s patience. 

Musk recently suggested he’d be surprised if “digital human emulation” isn’t solved by the end of the year. Most tech CEOs are thrilled if their AI can draft emails. Elon wants it to replicate the human condition before Q4 earnings. Keep in mind, this is coming from the same guy who’s been promising a Tesla robotaxi for 3 years straight.

On top of that, xAI’s AI companions (including anime-style chatbot characters meant to drive engagement) haven’t delivered the growth Musk hoped for. Add in the massive capital demands for chips, electricity, and data centers, and the pressure is cranked up to 100.

Obviously, none of this means xAI is cooked. Musk has made a career out of brute-forcing ambitious projects across the finish line through sheer willpower (and, to be fair, unlimited capital). But when six co-founders walk out in under two years, it’s probably not exactly got Sam Altman shaking in his shoes, worried you’re about to catch up.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Tesla as mentioned in the article.