XAI co-founder Jimmy Barr said Tuesday that he has left Elon Musk’s startup.
“It’s time to readjust my leanings on the big picture. 2026 is going to be a crazy year, and probably the busiest (and most consequential) year for the future of humanity,” Ba wrote in X.
Mr. Ba reported directly to Mr. Musk. He ran most of the company until late last year, but some of his responsibilities have since been split between two other co-founders, Tony Wu and Guodong Zhang, people with knowledge of the move told Business Insider.
Ba previously led a team that oversaw more than 1,000 AI instructors, according to an org chart from early last year. Business Insider previously reported that the role was given to Diego Pasini in September.
Ba becomes the second co-founder to leave within 48 hours. Wu announced Monday night that he has left the AI startup. Business Insider previously reported that Wu’s Slack account was deactivated shortly before the announcement.
Prior to Wu’s departure, xAI underwent further reorganization, with some of his responsibilities transferred to Chan.
Musk launched the AI company in 2023 with 11 other founders. Currently, six people have left the company, five of whom left within the last year.
In addition to his work at xAI, Ba is also an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. He received his Ph.D. He graduated from the same school after studying under Nobel Prize winner Jeffrey Hinton, also known as the “Godfather of AI.”
Musk said he built xAI as an alternative to what he called “woke” chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Over the past year, the company has become known for pushing the envelope. Last July, xAI unveiled a sexy digital avatar called “Ani,” and its Grok chatbot spouted anti-Semitic rants.
Most recently, xAI has come under fire after Grok began generating non-consensual sexual images of real people in response to prompts from X users. That backlash ultimately led the company to limit Grok’s image generation capabilities on X.
Last week, Musk announced that xAI would merge with his rocket company SpaceX. The company is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering this year that would value SpaceX at $1.5 trillion.
Ba and xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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