The last of Elon Musk’s xAI co-founders has departed. Ross Nordine, who served as the businessman’s right-hand man and essentially managed the company, is gone. The billionaire is “rebuilding from scratch” his AI venture.
Ross Nordine, who was Elon Musk’s right-hand man, coordinated company priorities, and oversaw all operations at the AI startup xAI—which began with Musk and 11 other co-founders—has left the company, according to sources cited by Business Insider.
Nordine joined the founding of xAI in 2023, transferring from Tesla where he had been working on both the autopilot system and the infrastructure for training Full Self-Driving.
Nordine’s exit comes amid a significant reorganization at xAI and a series of staff reductions. Since January of this year, several key personnel have left, including Zihang Dai, Godeok Zhang, Toby Pohlena, Jimmy Ba, Tony Wu, and Greg Yang. Consequently, this marks nearly a complete overhaul of the initial team.
These personnel changes accompany a broader restructuring. According to BI, xAI has also downsized by dozens of employees since the year began. Furthermore, some projects, such as Macrohard and the generative models division, are facing either a realignment or a slowdown. Simultaneously, the company is aggressively increasing hiring, bringing in specialists from rival AI startups.
Musk himself has publicly stated that xAI was “built incorrectly from the start” and is now being “rebuilt from scratch.” This reorganization follows the integration of the startup with SpaceX, as well as escalating competition within the AI sector from other developers. Following this merger, shares in the combined entity are projected to be valued at roughly $527 each, yielding a total valuation of $1.25 trillion.
Elon Musk is aiming to secure over $50 billion in investment capital after the company’s initial public offering (IPO).
xAI will be involved in the construction of a chip manufacturing plant as part of the Terafab project. Tesla, alongside SpaceX and xAI, intends to develop the world’s largest microchip production facility. Musk declared their objective is to achieve 1 trillion watts of computing power annually. Given that the power capacity of US electrical grids is only 0.5 trillion watts, a substantial portion of this required power must be situated in space.
The semiconductor production operations will be based in Austin, Texas.
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