xAI co-founder Jimmy Ba announced in a tweet that he is leaving the Elon Musk-led company. He thanked the technicians in the post billionaire and expressed his pride in his team.
“Last day at xAI. xAI’s mission is to propel humanity up the Kardashev technology tree. Thankful for helping the co-founders in the beginning. Huge thanks to Elon Musk for letting us go on this incredible journey together. So proud of everything the xAI team has done and will continue to stay close as friends of the team. Thank you all for working together. The people and camaraderie are the true wealth of this place,” Ba wrote.
He added, “With the right tools, we will enter an era of 100x productivity improvements. A recursive self-improvement cycle will likely take effect within the next 12 months. It’s time to recalibrate my gradient in the big picture. 2026 is going to be crazy and probably the busiest (and most important) year for our species’ future.”
-bar Tweet His exit comes just 48 hours after fellow xAI co-founder Tony Wu departed.
Who is Jimmy Bah?
According to Grokipedia, the online encyclopedia of artificial intelligence launched by Elon Musk’s xAI, Ba is a Canadian machine learning researcher and associate professor of computer science at the University of Toronto. He also received his PhD at the University of Toronto in 2018 under the supervision of Geoffrey Hinton. He co-founded xAI in July 2023 with Elon Musk and a team of researchers.
What is social media saying?
The post sparked a flurry of comments on X. While some are curious about why so many co-founders left xAI, some employees at the company expressed their admiration for Ba.
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One curiously asked: “What happened to xAI?” Another said: “It’s hard to imagine xAI without you. Thank you for being the most inspiring leader and for getting us to where we are today.”
A third commented: “Thanks for everything! It was such a privilege to work with you. Good luck! Thanks for the journey!” A fourth wrote: “Your contributions to xAI will always be remembered. It has been an honor to work with you on so many projects.”
How many co-founders have left xAI?
Six members of the company’s 12-person founding team have now left. In 2024, infrastructure head Kyle Kosic left to join OpenAI. In 2025, Christian Szegedy, who had worked at Google for more than 12 years before joining Elon Musk’s company, announced his departure.
Last August, Igor Babuschkin left his job to start a venture capital firm. In January 2026, Greg Yang resigned, citing health issues. On Monday night, Wu announced that he was leaving the company to begin the “next chapter” of his life. Within 48 hours, Jimmy Ba announced his departure from the company.
 Wu quit Elon Musk’s xAI.){kind=link}