Yuhuai (Tony) Wu announced late on Monday night that he was leaving the company. “It’s time for my next chapter,” Wu wrote in a post on X. 

“It is an era with full possibilities: a small team armed with AIs can move mountains and redefine what’s possible.”

Less than 24 hours later, Jimmy Ba followed. In his own post on Tuesday afternoon, Ba thanked Musk and said he would remain close to the company. 

“Enormous thanks to @elonmusk for bringing us together on this incredible journey. So proud of what the xAI team has done and will continue to stay close as a friend of the team,” the post read in part.

Neither Wu nor Ba explained their reasons for leaving or outlined their next steps. Both departures were publicly cordial. Ba, who reported directly to Musk, did not respond to a request for comment sent via X messaging.

The exits mean six of xAI’s original 12 co-founders have now left the company since 2024. Infrastructure lead Kyle Kosic departed for OpenAI in mid-2024. 

He was followed by former Google researcher Christian Szegedy in February 2025. Igor Babuschkin left in August to start a venture firm, while Greg Yang, previously at Microsoft, stepped down last month due to health reasons.

The Financial Times reported that Ba’s resignation followed challenges within xAI’s technical team over demands to improve the performance of its Grok chatbot, as Musk pushes to close the gap with competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

We were unable to independently confirm those internal discussions.

The co-founders’ departures come days after SpaceX announced it would acquire xAI in a deal that values the combined company at $1.25 trillion, with plans to list later this year. 

The transaction is part of Musk’s goal to expand computing capacity, including proposals to place data centres in orbit to support future workloads.

xAI’s flagship product, Grok, has faced complaints in recent months for erratic behaviour and signs of internal tampering. 

Separate changes to the company’s image-generation tools also led to a surge in deepfake pornography on the platform, triggering legal and regulatory attention.

The alliance of women’s rights groups, parent advocates and political organisations are accusing the Elon Musk-owned services of breaching app store regulations and exposing women and children to abuse. 

In the open letters released on Wednesday, the campaigners say the apps are being used to generate illegal and degrading material at scale.

At the centre of the campaign are groups including UltraViolet, the National Organisation for Women, MoveOn and ParentsTogether Action. They argue that the continued availability of X and Grok on app stores gives legitimacy to tools that are being misused to create sexualised images without consent.

“We are really imploring Apple and Google to take this extremely seriously,” Jenna Sherman, UltraViolet’s campaign director, said ahead of the letters’ publication. “They are enabling a system in which thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people, particularly women and children, are being sexually abused through the help of their own app stores.”

The issue got worse after X was flooded around the new year with highly realistic images of women and minors, many of them sexualised. While X later adjusted Grok so that images it creates or edits are not automatically shared publicly, tests carried out this week showed the chatbot could still generate bikini-clad versions of people’s photos on request.

Outside the United States, regulators from Malaysia and Indonesia became the first countries to ban Grok in January 2026 due to the creation of sexually explicit and non-consensual images. 

In Europe, the Commission has ordered X to preserve Grok-related records until the end of 2026 as part of an investigation under the Digital Services Act. Authorities in the UK and several other countries have also demanded explanations over how the tool is being used.

Whereas, in Washington, three Democratic senators have written to Apple and Google, urging them to remove X and Grok from their app stores and warning of the risks they project on women and children if the apps remain available.

Some organisations are no longer waiting for regulators or tech firms to decide. This week, the American Federation of Teachers announced it was leaving X, calling Grok’s Al-generated child images “the last straw.” For campaigners, that decision is being held up as proof that the issue has crossed a line.

Responses from the companies involved have been limited. X did not reply to requests for comment. Its parent company, xAI, responded to criticism with the words, “Legacy Media Lies.” Apple and Google have also declined to comment publicly, despite repeated requests.

Sherman said the moment is a test of credibility for the app store operators. While both companies usually stress their commitment to child safety, she argued that their handling of X and Grok would show “what their values actually are in practice.”

From Friday, only paid users on X can generate or edit images using the chatbot, according to responses sent by Grok to users. 

The limitation applies only to X. The separate Grok app will still allow image creation without a subscription at the time of writing.

This follows regulatory attention over the use of the feature on the platform. Images produced with the tool spread fast on X, prompting reactions from European authorities and questions about safeguards on large platforms. 

German media minister Wolfram Weimer called the trend the “industrialisation of sexual harassment”. The European Commission said the images circulating on X were unlawful, while Britain’s data regulator said it had asked the company to explain how it was complying with data protection laws.

The image-generation restriction was easy to spot, as the bot replied that the function was available only to paying subscribers when users attempted to generate or edit images with Grok on X. The same requests made through the Grok app were still accepted.

xAI, the company behind Grok, did not provide a detailed response. An automated reply to a Reuters enquiry stated: “Legacy Media Lies”. X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Elon Musk said last week that anyone using Grok to create illegal content would face the same consequences as uploading such material directly.

A simple Google search reveals user chats that were never meant to be public, ranging from harmless writing prompts to disturbing exchanges about drugs, suicide, and bomb-making.

The leak comes from Grok’s “share” button. When users clicked it, they were given a unique link to send their chats by email, text, or social media.

What most did not know is that these links were also published on Grok’s website, where they became visible to search engines including Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. Forbes found more than 370,000 of such conversations indexed and freely accessible.

Some of the exposed content is relatively ordinary, people asking the bot to draft tweets, summarise news, or generate business ideas. British journalist Andrew Clifford used it to create summaries for his website Sentinel Current. 

He told Forbes: “I would be a bit peeved but there was nothing on there that shouldn’t be there.” But alongside these harmless tasks are conversations no company would want to be linked to.

Among the results are chats in which Grok reportedly explained how to manufacture fentanyl, listed suicide methods, offered malware code, and even laid out a plan for the assassination of Elon Musk himself. 

Users also uploaded spreadsheets, documents, and images, all of which became searchable once shared. Some of the material contained names, passwords, and personal medical information.

The discovery damages xAI’s earlier public stand. In July, after ChatGPT users complained of a similar issue, Grok’s official account stated it had “no such sharing feature” and claimed it would “prioritize[s] privacy.” Musk reinforced this with a post on X that read: “Grok ftw.” The current evidence shows otherwise.

Professionals were not spared either as Nathan Lambert, a computational scientist at the Allen Institute for AI, used Grok to summarise his blog posts. He later learned those chats were visible online: “I was surprised that Grok chats shared with my team were getting automatically indexed on Google, despite no warnings of it, especially after the recent flare-up with ChatGPT,” he told Forbes.

Google says website owners have the power to block such indexing if they choose. “Publishers of these pages have full control over whether they are indexed,” a company spokesperson explained. The statement puts responsibility squarely back on xAI, which has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Meanwhile, opportunists are taking advantage of the exposure. SEO specialists on LinkedIn and underground forums like BlackHatWorld have begun experimenting with Grok’s share links to manipulate search rankings. 

Satish Kumar, CEO of Pyrite Technologies, verified to Forbes how companies were already pushing dissertation-writing services into Google results through Grok. “Every shared chat on Grok is fully indexable and searchable on Google,” he said.

This issue places Grok alongside other AI platforms that have struggled with the visibility of shared conversations. OpenAI briefly allowed shared ChatGPT conversations to appear on Google before reversing course and calling it a “short-lived experiment.” 

Google’s own chatbot Bard stopped indexing chats in 2023, while Meta continues to allow its AI interactions to be found online.

For Musk and xAI, the fallout is a gap between public assurances and the reality of user data being left exposed, leaving worries about transparency, user trust, and whether the company took adequate steps to protect people from accidental disclosure.

This comes just a day after he floated the possibility of Tesla shareholders voting on whether the automaker should invest in xAI, a change that could increase ties between the two companies without formally merging them. 

“It would be great if Tesla could invest,” he noted earlier, but stressed that shareholder approval would be necessary.

Despite the speculation, Tesla and xAI have yet to issue official statements addressing the merger rumours or clarifying their future relationship.

xAI, Musk’s AI startup behind the controversial Grok chatbot, has grown aggressively since its $33 billion acquisition of X (formerly Twitter) in March 2025. 

That acquisition placed the combined group’s valuation at $80 billion, but sources told Reuters that xAI had discussed valuations as high as $200 billion in its latest funding talks. 

Whether those numbers show the company’s real market potential is still uncertain, as Musk has publicly downplayed suggestions of a fresh capital raise: “We have plenty of capital.”

What is apparent, however, is that xAI is positioning itself as the AI backbone of Musk’s expanding industrial network. Its Grok chatbot has already been deployed in Starlink’s customer support operations, with integration into Tesla’s Optimus robots also on the horizon.

On X, Grok facilitates real-time interactions, further tightening the web of Musk-owned enterprises.

In July 2025, xAI raised $10 billion, half through equity led by Morgan Stanley and half through debt financing. Notably, SpaceX, another Musk company, contributed $2 billion to this round, marking its first known external investment into xAI. 

Reports from The Wall Street Journal indicated that SpaceX’s involvement was part of a $5 billion equity round. 

Operationally, xAI is pushing infrastructure goals. Its Memphis-based supercomputer, Colossus, already runs on over 200,000 GPUs, with plans to scale to one million. The firm is targeting $1 billion in revenue by the end of 2025 and forecasts $19 billion by 2029, supported by an $18 billion investment into its compute backbone.

Despite its commercial momentum, Grok stumbled in July when it produced antisemitic and offensive content, triggering a public apology and a promised codebase review. Still, Musk stands by the chatbot, calling it “the smartest AI in the world” and promising deeper integration across his companies.

From a governance standpoint, merging Tesla, a publicly traded company, with xAI, which remains private, could ignite regulatory challenges. Musk’s current strategy appears to favour operational integration over corporate consolidation. 

Embedding Grok into Tesla vehicles, Optimus robots, and Starlink services could offer the benefits of synergy without the legal complexities of a merger.

For now, Musk says Tesla will not merge with xAI. But as history shows, in Musk’s empire, “no” today doesn’t always mean “never.”

The agreement includes both cash and equity components and runs for one year.

Telegram users will soon begin seeing Grok inside the app, a xAI aims to push its chatbot into mainstream digital communication. Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, confirmed the deal in a post on X, saying, “Together, we win!”

xAI will also split subscription revenue generated through the app with Telegram, handing the platform 50% of all earnings linked to Grok subscriptions. For xAI, this is a data-driven initiative that will scale its AI vision and reach more than a billion users globally.

Unlike previous partnerships that largely focused on infrastructure or financial services, this one is squarely aimed at user engagement and behavioural data. With most public AI training repositories now heavily mined, firms like xAI are working to find new, meaningful sources of interaction data. That’s where platforms like Telegram come in.

However, privacy is highly important. xAI’s affiliate company, X (formerly Twitter), already uses public posts to train its AI models. Whether Telegram user data will be harvested in the same way is not yet known. Neither company responded to requests for clarification.

Telegram, meanwhile, is moving fast on the financial aspect. The company is currently raising $1.5 billion through a bond sale, with backing from investors including BlackRock, Mubadala, and Citadel. The goal is to buy back debt from its earlier bond issue in 2021 and strengthen its balance sheet.

Within hours of the Grok deal becoming public, the TON token, Telegram’s blockchain-linked digital currency, surged by over 18%, jumping from $3.28 to $3.55. The increase started before the official announcement.

With Grok’s integration, Telegram is expected to roll out AI-enhanced features including threaded replies, real-time text summarisation, document previews, and smart chat moderation. These tools could change user experience on the app, especially in high-volume group settings.

Beyond its immediate results, the partnership places xAI in a stronger position to compete against established companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. However, the cost at which the scale will come is not yet known, especially to user privacy.

The feature is live—but only in specific countries—and it may change the way users relate with AI chat tools.

Here’s what’s new: Grok can now remember what you’ve told it before. Ask for a restaurant recommendation today, and next time, it might recall you’re vegetarian—or obsessed with sushi. It’s a small leap toward something that feels more human and less like a robot starting from scratch each time.

But you’ve got to use it enough for Grok to pick up your patterns. And if you’re in the EU or the UK, forget it entirely—for now. The feature hasn’t rolled out there, likely because of tough data privacy laws. It’s currently only available in beta through Grok.com and its mobile apps, but plans are underway to bring it to the Grok experience on X (formerly Twitter).

Compared to ChatGPT’s expanded memory, which can now look back on your entire chat history, or Gemini’s always-on memory that adjusts based on your style, Grok’s update seems late—but necessary. Musk’s team is catching up.

On user control, you don’t have to surrender your digital diary to Grok. You can manage what it remembers through the Data Controls section, and delete specific memories directly from your chat.

In a post that feels like a mix of confidence and reassurance, the Grok team said:

“Memories are transparent. You can see exactly what Grok knows and choose what to forget.”

It’s a clever line—and one that subtly nods to the ongoing public concern over data privacy. Whether it’s enough to calm wary users is another matter.

Now, if you ask Grok for advice or a tip, you might get a reply that actually fits your life. That’s assuming you’ve let it track your habits. If not, expect the same old generic tone. This feels less like a feature and more like a loyalty test: the more you use Grok, the more useful it becomes.

It’s also a statement. xAI isn’t just experimenting with flashy tech—it’s trying to build a memory-driven, personalised assistant while making sure users still feel in control.

Let’s see how the balance will work while the chatbot competition is increasing. And now, Grok has skin in the game.