Elon Musk’s xAI Faces High Exec Turnover as CFO and Key Leaders Step Down
Elon Musk’s A.I. firm, xAI, has been making headlines lately, not just for its innovative Grok chatbot, but also for the high-profile turnover of its executives. The latest departure is that of Mike Liberatore, the company’s chief financial officer, who left after just three months. This exit adds to a wave of turnover at the startup, which was launched by Musk in 2023.
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Background and Experience of Departed Executives
Liberatore joined xAI in April after eight years at Airbnb, where he was vice president of finance and corporate development. He also previously worked at PayPal and eBay. At xAI, he was reportedly involved in fundraising and oversaw data center expansion efforts in Memphis, Tenn. Liberatore left in July, according to the Wall Street Journal. Around the same time, Raghu Rao, xAI’s former commercial lead, also departed. Rao had joined in April following roles at Zoom, Ernst & Young, and Deloitte.
Impact of Turnover on xAI
Another loss came this summer when Robert Keele, a member of xAI’s legal team, stepped away from his role as general counsel. “Working with Elon on this tech, at this time, was the adventure of a lifetime,” Keele wrote in an Aug. 5 X post. He said he was leaving to spend more time with his family. His farewell included a Grok-generated video of a man in a suit shoveling coal, which Keele said was the chatbot’s response to the prompt: “What’s it like to lead legal at xAI?”
Musk built xAI in just a few years with a founding team largely drawn from OpenAI and Google. Of the dozen co-founders, at least three have since left. Kyle Kosic is now at OpenAI, while Christian Szegedy became chief scientist at Morph Labs. Both departed last year. The most recent co-founder to exit was Igor Babushkin, who led engineering teams at the firm before leaving in August to launch his own venture capital firm focused on A.I. startups and agentic systems.
Controversies Surrounding xAI
Not every departure has been as cordial. Last month, xAI filed a lawsuit against Xuechen Li, a former member of xAI’s technical team, accusing him of stealing trade secrets to take to a new role at OpenAI. Li, who joined xAI in February 2024 and helped develop Grok, allegedly uploaded confidential data before accepting an offer from OpenAI in August. On Sept. 3, xAI won a court order temporarily blocking Li from starting the new job.
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Image Source: observer.com
