Elon Musk’s newly rebranded SpaceXAI has reportedly experienced a significant wave of employee departures since February, with more than 50 researchers and engineers leaving the company, according to a report from The Information. The exits reportedly include senior figures working across coding systems, world models, and Grok voice development.
Several competing AI companies are said to be recruiting former SpaceXAI employees, including Meta and Mira Murati’s startup Thinking Machines Lab.
According to The Information, at least 11 employees have left SpaceXAI for Meta since February, while at least seven others joined Thinking Machines Lab. TechCrunch previously reported on 11 departures announced shortly after the merger between SpaceX and xAI, including two xAI co-founders.
Leadership Changes Followed The Merger
SpaceX acquired xAI in February, combining two companies already owned by Musk under a single structure. The merged organization underwent leadership changes following the acquisition.
Earlier this month, Musk renamed the combined entity SpaceXAI.
The Information reported that employee concerns have grown particularly around the company’s pre-training division after the departure of team lead Juntang Zhuang.
Pre-training is considered one of the foundational stages in AI model development, where large models are initially trained on broad datasets before later refinement and tuning.
According to the report, some employees and people close to the company questioned whether SpaceXAI remains fully committed to building frontier AI models after the reduction in staffing within the pre-training group.
The Information said the team has reportedly shrunk to only a small number of people.
Workplace Pressure Reportedly Contributed To Departures
The report also linked some employee exits to Musk’s management style and workplace expectations.
According to a source cited by The Information, Musk imposed aggressive deadlines for training AI models, which reportedly created pressure that led teams to cut corners during development of Grok, the company’s AI chatbot system.
Complaints regarding demanding workloads have surfaced previously across several Musk-led companies, including Tesla.
The report suggested that the combination of workplace pressure and uncertainty around the company’s AI direction may have influenced some researchers to pursue opportunities elsewhere.
Equity And IPO Expectations May Have Played A Role
The Information also noted that some departures may have been financially motivated rather than solely tied to workplace concerns.
SpaceX regularly conducts private tender offers that allow employees to sell vested shares before a public listing. Employees may also believe their equity holdings could become liquid in the future due to expectations surrounding a potential IPO.
According to the report, employees who see a clearer financial path forward may become less willing to remain in demanding environments, particularly if they believe competing companies offer stronger opportunities to work on leading AI models.
Featured image credits: Bret Hartman / TED via Flickr
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