Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI has lost another early team member, as co-founder Toby Pohlen announced he is leaving, following a series of high-profile departures in recent weeks.
“Three years, thousands of PRs, and a million jokes. Today was my last day @xai,” Pohlen wrote, thanking the team and Musk. “To @elonmusk, thanks for bringing me on board. I’ve learned more about execution, speed, and product perfectionism than I ever imagined.”
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Pohlen did not share any immediate plans, instead describing a slower transition: “My next priorities: sleep for more than 8 hours, write down everything I’ve learned (I have a list), and then decide what I want to do next.” Elon Musk replied, saying, “Thanks for helping get xAI to where it is.”
Pohlen’s exit brings the total to six co-founders who have left xAI, leaving only six of the original twelve still at the company. He follows Yuhuai (Tony) Wu, who resigned earlier this month, making him the fifth co-founder to depart.
Wu’s departure followed those of Igor Babuschkin, Kyle Kosic, Christian Szegedy, and Greg Yang. Babuschkin left in August 2025 to start a venture capital firm focused on safe AI; Kosic left in 2024 to join OpenAI; Szegedy also left in 2024 for Morph Labs; and Yang stepped down last month due to health issues after a Lupus diagnosis.
The departure speed at xAI is striking, even by AI industry standards. Founded with twelve co-founders, the company has now lost half of its founding team in a short time. Wu’s resignation highlighted a broader trend of leadership turnover at top AI labs: OpenAI has seen eight of its 11 original co-founders leave, and Thinking Machines, co-founded by former OpenAI CEO Mira Murati, has lost three of its 6 co-founders. In contrast, Anthropic is the only major AI lab to keep its full founding team, with all seven co-founders, including CEO Dario Amodei and President Daniela Amodei, still in place.
Whether the accelerating rate of co-founder departures at xAI will affect its trajectory in the AI race remains to be seen. But with six of twelve founders now gone in under three years, the question of institutional continuity at one of the industry’s most ambitious ventures is becoming harder to ignore.
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