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Two co-founders of Elon Musk’s xAI resign, joining exodus

By Thomson Reuters Feb 10, 2026 | 8:26 PM

Feb 10 (Reuters) – xAI co-founders Tony Wu and Jimmy Ba have resigned from the artificial intelligence firm ​they started with billionaire Elon ‌Musk less than three years ago, they said in social media posts.

The exits are the latest in an exodus from ‌xAI ​that leaves the firm ⁠with half of ⁠its 12 co-founders.

The Financial Times reported that Ba’s resignation followed tensions within its technical team over demands to ​improve its AI model performance as Musk pushes to catch up ⁠to rivals such ⁠as OpenAI and Anthropic.

Ba did ​not immediately respond to a request for ​comment via X messaging on the ‌FT report.

Ba and Wu did not say in their posts on X why they were resigning or detail ⁠their next plans, but thanked Musk.

The latest changes at xAI come days after Musk’s ⁠SpaceX said ‌it will purchase xAI ⁠to create a $1.25 trillion company ​with ‌plans to go public ​later this ⁠year to help finance the billionaire’s ambitions to put data centers in space.

(Reporting by Natalia Bueno Rebolledo and Chris Thomas in Mexico City; Editing by ​Harikrishnan Nair)