Since its February merger, Elon Musk’s newly rebranded SpaceXAI has watched more than 50 researchers and engineers walk out the door.

 And the people walking away aren’t junior hires; they’re the ones who built the thing.

Context 

SpaceX acquired xAI, both Musk-owned companies, back in February. The combined entity got a new name this month: SpaceXAI. 

New leadership came in. A new chapter was supposed to begin. Instead, the story so far has been about who’s leaving, not who’s building.

That doesn’t mean SpaceXAI is finished. Musk has defied doubters before, repeatedly. But losing 50-plus researchers, seeing your pre-training team gutted, and watching rivals absorb your top talent is not a great start to a new era.

Talent Exodus

According to a report by The Information, at least 11 former xAI employees have already landed at Meta. 

Another seven have joined Thinking Machine Labs, the startup run by Mira Murati, former CTO of OpenAI. 

Meta and Thinking Machine Labs are scooping up talent that took years to develop. And SpaceXAI, still finding its footing after the merger, is struggling to plug the leaks.

TechCrunch has separately confirmed 11 of those departures. Two of the exits were co-founders,  a stinging detail for any company trying to project strength.

Pre-Training Problem

Here’s where things get really worrying. SpaceXAI’s core pre-training team has shrunk to just a handful of people.

Pre-training is step one in building any serious AI model. It’s the foundation. Without a strong pre-training team, you’re not building cutting-edge AI; you’re falling behind, fast.

The trouble started after Juntang Zhuang, the team lead, left the company. His exit triggered a wave of departures. 

People close to SpaceXAI told The Information it rattled employees inside the company. And honestly, that makes sense. 

Losing your team lead has a way of making everyone else reconsider their options.

Now, people inside and outside the company are asking the same uncomfortable question: Is SpaceXAI still serious about building frontier AI models?

Also read: The Night Elon Musk Grabbed a Painting and Left OpenAI

Work Culture

It wouldn’t be an Elon Musk company story without a section on the culture. Sources told The Information that Musk set impossible deadlines for model training. 

When you can’t hit the deadline, you cut corners. Reportedly, that’s exactly what happened with Grok, the AI model at the center of xAI’s ambitions.

Employees at Tesla have raised similar complaints for years. The pattern is the same: high pressure, unrealistic timelines, and a leadership style that doesn’t leave much room for pushback. 

For some people, the mission outweighs the stress. For others, eventually, it doesn’t.

Money Talks

SpaceX regularly holds tender offers. These let employees sell vested shares privately, even before a public stock listing. That’s a big deal. 

Many employees have likely watched their equity grow for years, and now they can actually touch it.

With SpaceX’s IPO expectations generating serious buzz, some employees may simply feel like the financial finish line is close enough to grab. 

When cashing out becomes realistic, the calculus changes. Why grind through pressure and deadlines when you can walk away with real money and still land a great job somewhere else?