Tony Wu, one of Elon Musk's co-founders at xAI, announced his departure from the artificial intelligence company after less than three years. In a post on X, Wu expressed gratitude to Musk while hinting at new opportunities, stating, "It's time for my next chapter" and noting that "a small team armed with AIs can move mountains and redefine what's possible."

Wu's exit follows xAI's recent merger with SpaceX in a transaction valuing the combined entity at $1.25 trillion, with SpaceX valued at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion. The merger, which Musk said was partly intended to advance orbital data centers, has already seen multiple founding members depart. Wu, a former Google employee, is at least the fifth co-founder to leave the startup since its 2023 launch.

The departures include Kyle Kosic in 2024, followed by Igor Babuschkin and Christian Szegedy last year, and Greg Yang last month. These exits raise questions about stability at xAI as the company integrates with SpaceX and pursues ambitious goals in AI computing infrastructure.