Elon Musk’s xAI has lost a large number of top executives in recent months—so many that onlookers have begun to wonder what’s causing the high turnover rate. Now, new reporting from the Wall Street Journal suggests some of those executives may have left due to internal conflict over the management style at the company and disagreements over its financial projections.
The list of executives who have recently departed Musk’s firm includes Mike Liberatore, the company’s former chief financial officer, who left xAI in July. Liberatore’s departure was notable since he had only joined the company in April, making his entire tenure with xAI about three months. A few days ago, it was reported that Liberatore had been hired by OpenAI, which is, of course, run by Musk’s much-hated rival, Sam Altman.
Other recent departures include the company’s general counsel, Robert Keele, who, according to his LinkedIn, joined the company in May of 2024 and left in early August after just over a year with the firm. In a post on his LinkedIn about the departure, Keele said he loved his “two toddlers” and didn’t “get to see them enough.” He added: “The job was a dream, the team, incredible. Working with Elon on this tech, at this time, was the adventure of a lifetime,” while noting, somewhat ambiguously, that there was “daylight between our worldviews.”
Yet another high-level departure involved Linda Yaccarino, the former CEO of X (Musk’s social media site, which is owned by xAI, and serves as the primary interface by which web users can interact with the company’s chatbot, Grok), who left the company in July after having toughed it out for over two years, having been brought on in May of 2023. Yaccarino, who once uttered the phrase “If not for X, there would be darkness,” said, at the time of her departure, that she was “immensely grateful to” Musk for having entrusted her “with the responsibility of protecting free speech,” and for “turning the company around.”
Sources Claim Disputes Preceded Departures
So, why have so many high-level executives been leaving Musk’s company? The WSJ report broaches the possibility of an answer: clashes over managerial styles and the company’s finances. The report is based on claims made by “people familiar with the matter” and does not identify which departed executives it is referring to. The Journal writes:
Several executives at xAI left after clashing with two of Elon Musk’s closest advisers over concern about the startup’s management and financial health, according to people familiar with the matter. Those advisers, Jared Birchall and John Hering, oversee the day-to-day operations of xAI while Musk, as chief executive officer, makes final decisions. Some of xAI’s executives voiced objections internally over how Birchall and Hering were trying to run the company on Musk’s behalf and felt there was no formal chain of command, the people said.
Some xAI executives said they left because they were concerned that some of the company’s financial projections were unrealistic, the people said.
Birchall, commonly referred to as Musk’s “right-hand man,” is tasked with operating a large amount of the billionaire’s empire, and occupies a number of important executive roles at his orgs, including Excession and the Musk Foundation. He is also the CEO of Neuralink and an advisor at xAI.
Alex Spiro, Musk’s attorney, referred us to statements he previously provided to the Journal. Those statements threw cold water on the idea that there had been a dispute at the company or that the company’s financials were “in any way improper.” Spiro also said: “The suggestion that the financials are in any way improper is false and defamatory.” A spokesperson for xAI did not return Gizmodo’s request for comment but told the Journal that Musk “leads xAI with unwavering vision and commitment, making it his top priority in advancing AI for the benefit of humanity.”
A Tumultuous Time for the Tech Industry
The war for AI supremacy has spurred intense competition between companies, and it’s not just Musk’s firm that has seen turnover. Meta has been on the warpath to hire new AI engineers and has been offering up mind-blowing salaries to lure talent from every corner of the industry. Still, a report in June found that Meta’s retention rate was lower than rival firm Anthropic. That same report claimed that OpenAI and DeepMind were also losing engineers to Anthropic.
In addition to corporate competition, personal rivalries have also complicated the industry outlook. Musk’s personal vendetta against OpenAI’s Altman has spawned an ongoing legal battle between the Tesla billionaire and OpenAI, which will surely cost both firms dearly in legal fees, but which, so far, hasn’t stopped OpenAI from maintaining its edge as the leading company in its industry. In August, xAI also sued a former engineer after he left the firm and went to work for OpenAI, accusing him of having stolen trade secrets.
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