said he intends to rebuild his
startup, xAI, after a series of departures sparked uncertainty about the company’s employee turnover and trajectory.
“xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up,” Musk
said in a post on his X social media platform
Thursday.
xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up.
Same thing happened with Tesla.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 12, 2026
The announcement coincides with more high-profile exits from xAI following its merger last month with Musk’s SpaceX. Guodong Zhang, an xAI co-founder who oversaw its image generation product, announced Thursday that he has departed the company. Haotian Liu, who worked closely with Zhang, has also left xAI, citing burnout.
Another founding member, Zihang Dai, is also no longer at the company, according to a Business Insider. Dai and xAI did not respond to requests for comment.
The rapid exits mean that no more than three of the 12 original xAI co-founders, including Musk, are left at the three-year-old company.
On Thursday, Musk hired two senior employees from Cursor, a leading AI coding startup that is currently in fundraising discussions at a US$50 billion valuation. Musk admitted at a conference earlier this week that xAI is behind on coding, a key focus for rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic PBC.
Managers at both SpaceX and Tesla have been asked to review the work of xAI employees, and have fired some of them,
, citing people familiar with the matter.
Musk has also been working on a hiring push with Baris Akis, a close ally who’s leading talent recruitment at xAI.
“Many talented people over the past few years were declined an offer or even an interview at xAI. My apologies,”
“Baris and I are going through the company interview history and reaching back out to promising candidates.”
Many talented people over the past few years were declined an offer or even an interview @xAI. My apologies.@BarisAkis and I are going through the company interview history and reaching back out to promising candidates. https://t.co/tvhipa1lu1
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 13, 2026
Meanwhile, xAI has started working closer with Tesla on the AI company’s Macrohard initiative after losing engineers on the team, including co-founder Toby Pohlen, who oversaw the project. Macrohard, now a joint venture with Tesla, refers to Musk’s goal to use AI to replicate “the function of entire companies.”
Ashok Elluswamy, a vice president for Tesla’s AI software, said on X that the two companies are actively hiring people for the project, showing how Musk’s larger universe of companies is taking over xAI.