xAI Exodus: Co-Founder Jimmy Ba Becomes Sixth Founding Member To Exit Elon Musk’s AI Firm

PALO ALTO, CA — The leadership ranks at Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, continue to thin as co-founder Jimmy Ba announced his departure on Wednesday, February 11, 2026. Ba, a renowned machine learning expert and University of Toronto professor, is the second high-profile exit in a single week and the sixth member of the original 12-person founding team to leave since the company’s inception in July 2023.

In a poignant post on X, Ba expressed gratitude for the journey, while hinting at a massive shift in the AI landscape over the next 12 months.

1. A “Friend of the Team” Moves On

Jimmy Ba’s exit message was notably optimistic about the technology while remaining cryptic about his personal next steps.

• The Mission: Ba noted that xAI’s goal remains to “push humanity up the Kardashev tech tree.”
• The Vision: He predicted that “recursive self-improvement loops” (AI systems that train themselves) would likely go live within the next year, leading to a “100x productivity” era.
• The “Insane” 2026: Ba described 2026 as the “most consequential year for the future of our species,” stating it was time for him to “recalibrate his gradient” on the big picture.

2. The Founder Fallout: Who has Left xAI?

The departure of Ba means exactly half of the original founding team has now moved on. This “brain drain” has sparked intense curiosity within the tech community regarding the internal culture or strategic direction of the company.

The xAI Founding Team Departure Timeline:

3. Who is Jimmy Ba?

A heavy-hitter in the world of computer science, Jimmy Ba’s presence at xAI was a major draw for top-tier talent.

• Academic Pedigree: He is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto and a protégé of the “Godfather of AI,” Geoffrey Hinton, having completed his PhD under him in 2018.
• Scientific Contribution: Ba is best known as a co-author of the Adam optimizer paper, one of the most cited works in the history of deep learning, which fundamentally changed how AI models are trained.

4. “What’s Happening at xAI?”

While the remaining founding members—including Zihang Dai and Toby Pohlen—continue to push updates to the Grok LLM, the recent spate of exits has led to social media speculation. Musk has yet to comment directly on Ba’s exit, though he recently posted about SpaceX focusing on Moon-base infrastructure. Current xAI employees took to X to describe Ba as the “most inspiring leader” and credited him with the “camaraderie” that defined the early days of the “grind.”