xAI Loses Second Co-founder in Two Days Amid IPO Preparations

• Influential AI researcher Jimmy Ba announced his departure from xAI, the second co-founder to leave in two days.
• Ba's exit follows Tony Wu's departure, raising concerns as xAI prepares for a public listing after merging with SpaceX.
• Ba, a University of Toronto professor, was crucial for foundational research influencing xAI's Grok 4 models.
• The company faces leadership churn and regulatory probes over its Grok chatbot generating non-consensual explicit images.
• xAI, founded by Elon Musk in 2023, aims to challenge OpenAI and Google, but is now under scrutiny.