Why top talent is walking away from OpenAI and xAI

February 13, 2026 Theresa Loconsolo

AI companies have been hemorrhaging talent the past few weeks. Half of xAI’s founding team has left the company — some on their own, others through “restructuring” — while OpenAI is facing its own shakeups, from the disbanding of its mission alignment team to the firing of a policy exec who opposed its “adult mode” feature.  Watch as TechCrunch’s Equity podcast hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony […]

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Why top talent is walking away from OpenAI and xAI
Why top talent is walking away from OpenAI and xAI

AI companies have been hemorrhaging talent the past few weeks. Half of xAI’s founding team has left the com...

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OpenAI removes access to sycophancy-prone GPT-4o model
OpenAI removes access to sycophancy-prone GPT-4o model

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