Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI has lost its last two co-founders, Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen, according to Business Insider. The departure of these individuals follows a mass exodus that left only two of the company’s original 11 co-founders remaining earlier this month. It is unclear why Kroiss and Nordeen have chosen to leave xAI now, with Musk recently stating that he believes the company was not built right from its inception. However, it seems that Musk is committed to rebuilding xAI from scratch.

Manuel Kroiss, who led xAI’s pretraining team, and Ross Nordeen, Musk’s “right-hand operator,” both reported directly to Elon Musk at some point in their time at the company. Nordeen reportedly joined xAI from Tesla and was involved in planning major layoffs at Twitter after Musk acquired the company in 2022. His departure is significant given his involvement in the Twitter layoffs.

xAI was recently acquired by SpaceX, bringing all of these companies – including SpaceX, xAI, and X (formerly Twitter) – under one corporate umbrella. This merger has been seen as a strategic move by Musk to expand his influence within the tech industry. However, it seems that this unity may be short-lived, given the departures of Kroiss and Nordeen.

With the loss of these two co-founders, xAI is now left with just one other original co-founder remaining. The future of the company remains uncertain, but Musk has stated his intention to rebuild it from its foundations up. This suggests that the new leadership will aim to revamp the company’s strategy and approach in order to move forward.

The departure of Kroiss and Nordeen is another significant blow to xAI, which was seen as one of the most promising AI startups founded by Musk. However, it remains to be seen whether this setback will hinder or help the overall success of SpaceX under Musk’s leadership.