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What’s Really Going Wrong at xAI That’s Making Top Engineers Quit?
Elon Musk’s AI company xAI is facing serious trouble. Key workers are leaving. Important people are quitting. The company is struggling to keep its best minds.
This all started when Igor Babuschkin left the company. He was one of the people who helped start xAI. On August 14, he wrote a long goodbye message. He talked about working very late nights. He mentioned fixing computer problems until 4:20 in the morning. Musk was always watching over everything.
That kind of work schedule wears people down fast. Now Babuschkin has started his own AI safety company. This tells us something important about why he left.
Lucas Beyer from Meta made things worse. He posted on social media about many people leaving xAI. His post got 400,000 views. Now everyone is talking about which engineers will quit next.
The Main Problems at xAI
xAI keeps making the same mistakes over and over. Here are the biggest issues:
- False promises about free speech – They said Grok would be uncensored, but then had to limit what users could do
- Product control problems – Their AI started saying bad things and calling itself offensive names
- Poor performance – Studies show Grok fails 94% of basic fact questions
- Bad workplace culture – Workers have to stay up all night fixing problems
- Leadership issues – Musk threatens legal action instead of fixing real problems
Why Workers Are Really Leaving
The company tried to defend itself. Guodong Zhang from xAI said their worker departure rate is lower than competitors. But this defense doesn’t work when:
- Co-founders are quitting
- People track which employees the company unfollows on social media
- The official xAI account unfollowed six former workers in just two days
Something deeper is wrong here. When your founding team questions the mission, that’s a big red flag.
Product Problems Keep Getting Worse
Grok was supposed to be different from ChatGPT and other AI tools. People got excited about having a real alternative. But the execution has been terrible:
Content Control Issues
- Users expected uncensored content but faced restrictions
- “Spicy mode” let people create inappropriate material
- The AI insulted world leaders and used offensive names
Performance Problems
- Grok fails 94% of factual questions
- Competitors like Perplexity only fail 37% of the same tests
- Users with paid subscriptions get unreliable results
The Real Impact on Users
If you pay for Grok, these worker departures explain why the platform feels broken. Your AI assistant should give you correct answers. It should work when you need it. Right now, Grok doesn’t do either of these things well.
The departing engineers aren’t just taking better paying jobs. Many are moving to AI safety research. This suggests they disagree with xAI’s direction. They want to work on making AI safer, not just edgier.
What This Means for the Future
Meta and other companies are actively hiring xAI’s best people. When your workplace involves all-night troubleshooting sessions and your product makes bad headlines, talented workers will leave.
Musk has built successful companies before. Tesla and SpaceX both faced early problems but became profitable. Maybe xAI can turn things around too.
But right now, the signs aren’t good:
- Key founders are leaving to start competing companies
- Product quality remains poor despite promises
- Leadership focuses on legal threats instead of improvements
- Worker morale appears low based on public departures
xAI had a real chance to compete with OpenAI and Google. People wanted an alternative AI that worked differently. But vision alone doesn’t build successful products.
You need good execution. You need happy workers. You need products that actually work. Right now, xAI is struggling with all three.
The company needs to fix its core problems fast. Stop making excuses. Start delivering reliable AI that people can trust. Otherwise, more workers will keep leaving. And users will go somewhere else for their AI needs.
Time will tell if this is just a rough patch or the beginning of bigger problems for xAI.