Ross Nordeen, Musk’s obvious ‘right-hand operator’, is reportedly the final to depart.
xAI reportedly misplaced its eleventh co-founder, leaving Elon Musk as the one member of the 12-person founding staff nonetheless left within the firm.
Ross Nordeen was the final to depart Musk, making the transfer simply days after Manuel Kroiss reportedly instructed folks he’s leaving the corporate. Neither the exiting co-founders, nor xAI have made a press release concerning the departures. Nonetheless, Nordeen misplaced the badge on X that identifies him as an xAI worker.
Kroiss and Nordeen reported on to Musk, in response to the Enterprise Insider, whereas Nordeen, who adopted Musk from Tesla, served as his “right-hand operator”. Nordeen was additionally reportedly one of many few who helped coordinate large-scale layoffs at X after Musk took over the corporate in 2022.
Earlier this month, Zihang Dai reportedly left xAI, whereas Guodong Zhang posted on X saying his departure.
The newest marks the final of the co-founder exodus from xAI, whose father or mother firm SpaceX is making ready for a historic preliminary public providing (IPO) which might worth the tech juggernaut at a market cap of round $1.75trn.
The flurry of exits from xAI started after the corporate was acquired by Musk’s different firm SpaceX in February. xAI had acquired X in March 2025.
Toby Pohlen introduced in late February that he was leaving the corporate. He was the seventh co-founder to exit xAI in lower than three years, following Jimmy Ba and Tony Wu, who left earlier that month.
Kyle Kosic left in 2024, adopted by Igor Babuschkin and Christian Szegedy in 2025. Greg Yang, one other co-founder, introduced in January that he can be stepping down after being recognized with Lyme illness.
Reuters lately reported that Musk might be allocating as a lot as 30pc of shares in SpaceX’s IPO to retail buyers, a transfer that helps him form who owns the corporate and the way its shares commerce.
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Elon Musk at Charlie Kirk’s memorial, September 2025. Picture: Gage Skidmore by way of Flickr (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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