The OpenAI mafia: 15 of the most notable startups founded by alumni
Today on Decoder we’re going to talk about the war for AI talent. Right now, the hottest job market on the planet is for AI researchers. The vast majority of these people are concentrated into a small number of hugely valuable, extremely fast-growing companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. Nowadays, such companies are paying […]
Three U.S.-based AI companies raised rounds larger than $1 billion so far in 2026 with 14 others raising rounds of $100 million or more.
Elon Musk is “actively” working to make xAI’s Grok chatbot “more unhinged, according to a former employee.
The past few days have been a wild ride for xAI, which is racking up staff and cofounder departure announcements left and right. On Tuesday and Wednesday, cofounder Yuhuai (Tony) Wu announced his departure and that it was “time for [his] next chapter,” with cofounder Jimmy Ba following with a similar post later that day, […]
On Wednesday, xAI took the rare step of publishing its full 45-minute all-hands presentation to the X platform, making it widely available.
Since the xAI-SpaceX merger announced last week, which combined the two companies (as well as social media platform X) for a reported $1.25 trillion valuation – the biggest merger of all time – a handful of xAI employees and two of its co-founders have abruptly exited the company, penning long departure announcements online. Some also […]
At least nine engineers, including two co-founders, have announced their exits from xAI in the past week, fueling online speculation and raising questions about stability at Musk’s AI company amid mounting controversy.
Whatever the cause of the departures, the cumulative impact is alarming. There is a lot of work left to do at xAI, and an IPO will bring more scrutiny than the lab has ever faced before.