Elon Musk's xAI Loses Half Its Founders As Toby Pohlen Steps Down Amid IPO Push

Late Thursday, Toby Pohlen, co-founder of xAI, took to X to announce his decision to depart the company after three years.

“Three years, thousands of PRs, and a million jokes….” wrote Pohlen as he penned his exit note.

He expressed gratitude towards his team and co-founder, Elon Musk. “I’ve learnt more about execution, speed, and product perfectionism than I could ever have imagined,” he wrote.

Pohlen’s post suggested that he will be taking some time off to rest, document his experiences, and contemplate his next move. He did not disclose any specific plans for his future.

In response to Pohlen’s announcement, Musk expressed his appreciation for the co-founder’s contributions to xAI’s growth and success.

“Thanks for helping get xAI to where it is,” wrote Musk

String Of Departures At xAI

Pohlen’s departure adds to the recent exodus of co-founders from xAI. Earlier this month, the company lost two other co-founders, Yuhuai “Tony” Wu and Jimmy Ba. These departures follow earlier exits from the founding team, including Christian Szegedy, who left last February; Igor Babuschkin, who departed in August; and Greg Yang, who recently stepped down due to health reasons.

This means that half of the original founding team has now left the company, which is facing increasing pressure as it prepares for a potential IPO. xAI was founded in 2023 to challenge OpenAI and Alphabet Inc.‘s Google in the rapidly expanding AI race.

Musk Restructures xAI Amid Exits

Following the wave of departures, Musk announced a restructuring of xAI. He stated that the reorganization was necessary to improve execution speed and, unfortunately, required parting ways with some people.

“We are hiring aggressively,” Musk indicated that the company intends to rebuild while restructuring.

The shake-up comes after SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock deal valuing SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion.

xAI, which owns social media platform X and develops the Grok AI chatbot and image generator, was previously used by Elon Musk in another all-stock acquisition of X.

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