Elon Musk’s newly rebranded SpaceXAI is reportedly losing top talent, with more than 50 researchers and engineers leaving since February. according to the Information. Outputs include key leaders in coding, global models, and Grok voice.
Rivals such as Meta and Thinking Machines Lab are reportedly bringing in former staff, with the company’s core pre-training team down to just a handful of people. Since February, at least 11 xAI employees have defected to Meta, The Information reports. At least seven left to join Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab. TechCrunch has previously reported on 11 of the xAI departures announced immediately after the merger, including two co-founders.
SpaceX acquired xAI — two companies owned by Musk — in February and has since installed new leadership at the company. Musk renamed the combined company SpaceXAI earlier this month.
The departures ahead of the training, which followed the departure of team leader Juntang Zhuang, have particularly concerned employees and people close to SpaceXAI, according to The Information. Pre-training is the first step in building new AI models, and many have questioned whether the company is still committed to developing top models.
The report also found that Musk’s extreme work culture has led some staff to leave — something Musk’s employees have complained about at all of his companies, including Tesla. A source who spoke to The Information said Musk set unrealistic deadlines for training models, which led to cuts at Grok.
Of course, several of the exits could be driven by the desire to cash in.
SpaceX regularly offers tenders so employees can sell vested shares privately. Others may simply feel confident that their equity is close to liquid given the company’s blockbuster IPO expectations. Once employees see the financial light at the end of the tunnel, they are less likely to work for a company that puts undue pressure on them and may not build the top models they want to work on.
TechCrunch has reached out to SpaceX for comment.
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