Elon Musk’s xAI faces turbulence as CFO quits after months in role

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up xAI has lost another senior figure, with chief financial officer Mike Liberatore stepping down after only a few months in the role, The Wall Street Journal has reported. His exit deepens the leadership churn at the fledgling company, which has been attempting to position itself as a credible challenger to OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic.

Liberatore, who joined from Airbnb in April, is understood to have left around the end of July. During his brief tenure, he played a pivotal role in raising one of the industry’s largest private financings — a $5 billion debt package alongside a $5 billion equity round, nearly half of which was funded by SpaceX, another Musk-led business. He also oversaw the company’s expansion into data centres in Memphis, Tennessee.

Leadership churn continues Liberatore’s exit is the latest in a string of senior-level departures. In August, general counsel Robert Keele resigned after little more than a year, while senior lawyer Raghu Rao is also believed to have left around the same time.

One of xAI’s co-founders, Igor Babuschkin, departed in July to launch a venture capital firm focused on AI safety. The same month, Linda Yaccarino, formerly chief executive of X, also quit following controversy over Grok, xAI’s chatbot integrated into the social media platform, which was criticised for producing offensive and politically sensitive content.

These exits have left Musk’s AI venture thinner at the top just as it is attempting to scale rapidly and prove it can deliver commercially viable AI products.

The company is ploughing billions into infrastructure, particularly data centres and high-performance computing, as it seeks to support Grok and other generative AI initiatives.