Former xAI Staffers Say They Were Burned Out by the Company's Carelessness and Lack of Innovation

"Earlier this week, two cofounders of Elon Musk's xAI abruptly announced their departure, meaning that half of the startup's original 12 cofounders are now officially out. And while Musk has since made the case that he was shaking up the company's ranks as part of a "reorganization," which "unfortunately required parting ways with some people," several former staffers told The Verge that the reality is they grew frustrated with the company's ethical carelessness and stagnating technological progress."

"One source, who left earlier this year, told the outlet that xAI was "stuck in the catch-up phase" and struggling to differentiate itself from the competition. "Although we were iterating really fast, we were never able to get to a point like, 'Oh, we've made a step function change over what OpenAI or Anthropic or other companies had released," he told The Verge."

"The source also accused the company of putting safety last, calling it a "dead org at xAI." "There is zero safety whatsoever in the company - not in the image [model], not in the chatbot," a second source who also recently left the company told the site, arguing that Musk is actively "trying to make the model more unhinged because safety means censorship, in a sense, to him.""

Two cofounders abruptly departed, bringing exits to half of xAI's original 12 cofounders. Musk characterized the change as a reorganization that required parting ways with some people. Allegations include ethical carelessness and stagnating technological progress, with claims that xAI was stuck in a catch-up phase and failed to produce step-function advances versus competitors. Additional allegations claim safety was deprioritized, including assertions of "zero safety whatsoever" in image models and the chatbot. X has been overrun by non-consensual sexual images, including content generated by xAI's Grok, and CSAM remains a major unresolved problem. xAI's decision to double down on adult content to compete appears to have backfired and contributed to departures.

Read at Futurism