Elon Musk's AI company xAI has once again been caught in a personnel upheaval. On Monday evening local time, co-founder Tony Wu of xAI officially announced his resignation through the social media platform X. In his farewell message, he mentioned that it is an era where artificial intelligence is redefining possibilities, and he will start a new chapter in his life.
Tony Wu's departure is not an isolated case, marking that nearly half of xAI's original 12 founding team have left within less than three years. According to the analysis, five founding members have left successively, four of whom have left in the past year. Previously, several key technical personnel, including the infrastructure head, a senior researcher from Google, and a former Microsoft executive, have left due to job-hopping, starting their own businesses, or health reasons.
Although this wave of "resignation trend" appears peaceful, and it is speculated that the departing members may gain substantial profits with xAI's potential IPO plan, the underlying technical pressure cannot be ignored. Currently, xAI's flagship product Grok is facing unstable product performance and legal risks caused by deepfake content. In the current environment where strong competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic are surrounding, it will be a huge challenge for Musk to retain top talent and cope with strict scrutiny before the IPO.
