On March 26, Business Insider reported that xAI co-founder Manuel Kroiss had told people close to him that he would leave the company, according to informed insiders.Cross, also known as "Makro," was one of 11 engineers who co-founded xAI with Elon Musk in 2023. With his departure, the number of co-founder departures from the company now reaches 10.
xAI
Since January this year, xAI co-founders Zhang Guodong, Dai Zihang, Toby Pohlen, Jimmy Ba, Wu Yuhuai and Yang Ge have all left one after another.
Cross was previously responsible for pre-training at xAI, helping the company train its artificial intelligence models on large data sets, and reported directly to Musk. He also worked with Zhang Guodong to improve the programming model of xAI. Musk said at the Abundance Summit earlier this month that xAI "is lagging behind in programming" but that the company is working to "outpace the competition in programming."
With Cross' departure, Ross Nordeen from Tesla is the only co-founder besides Musk to remain with the company.
According to people familiar with the matter, xAI’s organizational structure has been undergoing turbulent adjustments in the past few weeks. Musk has taken over dozens of direct reports and transferred employees from Tesla and SpaceX. The company has also laid off dozens of employees, people familiar with the matter said.
Earlier this month, Musk said at X: "xAI was never built right from the beginning, so it is being completely rebuilt."