- Updated: March 28, 2026
- 3 min read
Elon Musk’s AI Startup xAI Sees Final Co‑Founders Depart After SpaceX Acquisition
**Key Facts**
| Fact | Details |
|——|———|
| **Who left** | The final two co‑founders of Elon Musk’s AI startup **xAI** – **Manuel Kroiss** and **Ross Nordeen**. |
| **Timing** | Business Insider reported Kroiss announced his exit earlier in the week; Nordeen’s departure was confirmed on **Friday, March 28 2026**. |
| **Reporting line** | Both reported **directly to Musk**. |
| **Roles** | • **Manuel Kroiss** – Head of the **pre‑training team**, responsible for building the large‑scale language‑model foundations.
• **Ross Nordeen** – Musk’s **“right‑hand operator,”** a senior operations executive who previously came from Tesla and helped plan the massive layoffs at Twitter after Musk’s 2022 acquisition. |
| **Musk’s comment** | Musk said xAI “**was not built right the first time around**” and that the company is now **“being rebuilt from the foundations up.”** |
| **Corporate backdrop** | • **SpaceX** recently **acquired xAI**, placing SpaceX, xAI and X (formerly Twitter) under a single corporate umbrella.
• SpaceX is reportedly **preparing for an IPO**, which would bring all three entities together on the public market. |
| **Industry reaction** | TechCrunch has reached out for comment; no response was available at the time of reporting. |
**Context & Nuances**
1. **Co‑founder exodus** – Earlier in March, only two of the original 11 co‑founders remained at xAI. The exit of Kroiss and Nordeen now means **all original co‑founders have left**, suggesting a major leadership reset.
2. **Operational focus** – Both departing executives were **hands‑on operators** (pre‑training research and day‑to‑day ops). Their exits could signal a shift from the original startup‑style, founder‑driven culture to a more **corporate, Musk‑directed structure** under SpaceX.
3. **“Rebuilding from the foundations up”** – Musk’s statement implies that the current technical architecture, product roadmap, or team composition is being overhauled. It aligns with the recent **SpaceX acquisition**, hinting that the AI effort will be more tightly integrated with Musk’s broader hardware and software ecosystem (rockets, Starlink, X platform).
4. **Strategic timing** – The departures coincide with SpaceX’s **pre‑IPO positioning**. A cleaner, Musk‑controlled leadership team may be intended to present a more unified, scalable AI business to investors.
5. **Historical pattern** – Nordeen’s background (Tesla → Twitter layoffs) shows Musk’s tendency to move trusted operators across his ventures to execute rapid, often disruptive, restructuring. Kroiss’s role in pre‑training suggests the AI model pipeline itself may be re‑engineered.
6. **Potential impact on xAI’s product** – With the head of pre‑training gone, the **development of xAI’s flagship model (presumably “Groq” or a successor)** could face delays or a change in direction, especially if Musk opts to leverage SpaceX’s compute resources or align the model with X’s social‑media services.
**Bottom Line**
– **All original co‑founders of xAI have now left**, the last two being Manuel Kroiss (pre‑training lead) and Ross Nordeen (Musk’s chief operations partner).
– Musk acknowledges that the company’s initial build was flawed and announces a **foundational rebuild**, likely under the tighter oversight of SpaceX as it prepares for a public offering.
– The departures reflect a broader **strategic consolidation** of Musk’s enterprises (SpaceX, xAI, X) and may presage a shift in xAI’s technical roadmap, operational style, and market positioning.
Andrii Bidochko
CTO UBOS
Andrii Bidochko is an AI entrepreneur and researcher focused on AI agents, reinforcement learning, and autonomous systems. He writes about the technologies shaping the future of machine intelligence, from frontier models and agent architectures to real-world AI applications.