Trending Now - Xai Restructures Engineering Team Amid Spacex Leadership Shift
WHO:
Business Insider - Michael Nicolls, senior vice president of Starlink at SpaceX, has taken on the title of president of xAI.
Business Insider - Devendra Chaplot, former researcher at Facebook and Thinking Machines Labs, joined xAI in March 2026.
Business Insider - Aman Madaan will oversee model factory and tooling at xAI.
Business Insider - Aditya Gupta will head post-training and reinforcement learning at xAI.
Business Insider - Beibin Li, former researcher at Microsoft and Meta, will lead post-training for Grok Code.
Business Insider - Xuhui Jia, previously with Google DeepMind, and Yukun Zhu will lead video and image training at xAI.
Business Insider - Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsburg will lead the product team at xAI.
Business Insider - Jake Palmer will lead physical infrastructure at xAI.
Business Insider - Daniel Dueri, director of software engineering at SpaceX, will lead compute infrastructure at xAI.
Business Insider - Matt Monson, director of Starlink software at SpaceX, will lead data at xAI.
WHAT:
Business Insider - xAI is reorganizing its engineering team amid a leadership shift.
Business Insider - Michael Nicolls stated that xAI is "clearly behind" the competition.
Business Insider - SpaceX acquired xAI in 2026.
Business Insider - xAI is expected to file for an initial public offering (IPO) in 2026, potentially valuing the company at over $2 trillion.
Business Insider - xAI has lost several cofounders and senior leaders, including Ross Nordeen.
Business Insider - xAI has shed dozens of employees since February 2026.
Business Insider - The company has cut portions of its teams working on Grok Imagine and Macrohard earlier in 2026.
WHERE:
Business Insider - xAI's operations are based in Palo Alto, California.
WHEN:
Business Insider - The reorganization of xAI's engineering team is effective immediately as of April 2026.
Business Insider - xAI was acquired by SpaceX in January 2026.
Business Insider - Michael Nicolls announced the changes in April 2026.
WHY:
Business Insider - The reorganization is aimed at helping xAI catch up with competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
Business Insider - Elon Musk stated that "xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up."
HOW:
Business Insider - The company is using a restructuring approach similar to that of Tesla to rebuild xAI.
Business Insider - Engineers from Tesla and SpaceX are assisting with the changes at xAI.
(UPDATED April 9, 2026 05:36 UTC)
xAI is undergoing a significant reorganization of its engineering team, effective immediately, as it aims to catch up with competitors like OpenAI and Google. Michael Nicolls, who has recently taken on the role of president at xAI, noted that the company is "clearly behind" in the race and is being rebuilt from the ground up with help from engineers at Tesla and SpaceX. The restructuring comes after SpaceX acquired xAI in January 20th26, and the company is expected to file for an initial public offering later this year, potentially valuing it at over $2 trillion.