xAI reorganizes engineering as SpaceX's Michael Nicholls warns the team is “clearly behind”

Reorg and leadership shuffle

It has been reported that SpaceX executive Michael Nicholls — now reportedly taking the title of xAI president — sent an internal memo saying the AI unit is “clearly behind” its rivals and must move fast. The memo, viewed by Business Insider, lays out an immediate engineering reshuffle: Devendra Chaplot will lead pre‑training; Aman Madaan takes on model factory and tooling; Aditya Gupta is in charge of post‑training and reinforcement learning. Several SpaceX engineers have folded into xAI leadership too — names include Daniel Dueri on compute, Jake Palmer on physical infrastructure, and Matt Monson leading data.

Talent, turf wars, and a ticking IPO clock

The changes come amid a steady exodus of early engineers and cofounders and after SpaceX acquired xAI earlier this year. It has been reported that Nicholls described training performance on xAI’s compute as “embarrassingly low” and said the company plans significant improvements within two months. Musk’s playbook — rip it apart and rebuild quickly, Tesla style — appears in full force. Sounds familiar? It should; this is the startup equivalent of shoring up the lifeboats while the band keeps playing.

Stakes and scramble

xAI is now drifting closer to SpaceX as the space giant eyes an IPO that, it has been reported, could value the firm in the trillions. That raises the stakes: get models and infrastructure humming, or risk missing the race against OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. The memo said people’s titles will be adjusted to better reflect their work. A spokesperson for xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Who will stick around to finish the overhaul — and will it be fast enough? Time, and the market, will tell.

Sources: businessinsider.com