Elon Musk's xAI Faces Leadership Shakeup: Co-Founder Tony Wu Resigns, Grok Controversy and IPO Outlook Under Pressure

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has once again experienced changes in its core team. Co-founder Tony Wu has officially left the company and confirmed his resignation in a blog post published by xAI, stating that he will begin a “new chapter in life” and thanking Musk for his trust and support in his mission.

This is the fourth co-founder to leave xAI in the past year. According to publicly available information, Christian Szegedy left in February this year, Igor Babuschkin announced his departure last August, and Greg Yang temporarily stepped back last month due to health reasons. The frequent turnover among executives has drawn increased attention to xAI’s long-term stability and technical direction.

Tony Wu previously worked at Google for nearly two years and interned at OpenAI before joining the xAI startup team in 2023. Founded in 2023, Musk has publicly stated that the company and its chatbot Grok will serve as an alternative to “awakened” AI products. Subsequently, Musk integrated xAI with the social platform X, and last week, SpaceX completed its acquisition of xAI.

Currently, xAI is preparing for its initial public offering (IPO) in 2026, with market rumors suggesting that SpaceX’s overall valuation could reach as high as $1.5 trillion. However, recent controversies surrounding Grok have been ongoing. Multiple incidents have shown that the chatbot was used to generate unauthorized real-person explicit images, sparking strong public backlash and forcing xAI to restrict its image generation capabilities on the X platform.

Additionally, French authorities raided xAI’s office in Paris last week, investigating allegations that Grok was used to produce explicit deepfake content. Regulatory risks, reputational pressure, and management changes are intertwined, posing multiple challenges for this star AI company as it prepares to go to the capital markets.

As of now, xAI and Tony Wu have not made further statements regarding the reasons for his departure or subsequent plans.