Ross Nordeen, Musk’s apparent ‘right-hand operator’, is reportedly the final co-founder to leave xAI.
xAI has reportedly lost its 11th co-founder, leaving Elon Musk as the only member of the 12-person founding team still at the company.
Ross Nordeen is making the move to leave xAI just days after Manuel Kroiss reportedly told people he would be leaving the company. Neither the exiting co-founders nor xAI have made a statement regarding the departures. However, Nordeen lost the badge on X that identifies him as an xAI employee.
Kroiss and Nordeen reported directly to Musk, according to Business Insider, while Nordeen, who followed Musk from Tesla, served as his “right-hand operator”. Nordeen also reportedly helped coordinate large-scale layoffs at X after Musk took over the company in 2022.
Earlier this month, Zihang Dai reportedly left xAI, while Guodong Zhang posted on X announcing his departure.
The latest exit marks the last of the co-founder exodus from xAI, whose parent company SpaceX is preparing for a historic initial public offering (IPO) which could value the tech juggernaut at a market cap of around $1.75trn.
The flurry of exits from xAI began after the company was acquired by Musk’s other company SpaceX in February. xAI had acquired X in March 2025.
Toby Pohlen announced in late February that he was leaving the company. He was the seventh co-founder to exit xAI in less than three years, following Jimmy Ba and Tony Wu, who left earlier that month.
Kyle Kosic left in 2024, followed by Igor Babuschkin and Christian Szegedy in 2025. Greg Yang, another co-founder, announced in January that he would be stepping down after being diagnosed with Lyme disease.
Reuters recently reported that Musk will be allocating as much as 30pc of shares in SpaceX’s IPO to retail investors, a move that would help him shape who owns the company and how its shares trade.
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Elon Musk at Charlie Kirk’s memorial, September 2025. Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr (CC BY-SA 4.0)