\n<\/p>\n
Robert Keele said this week that he has stepped down<\/a> as xAI\u2019s head of legal after just over a year, saying he wants to spend more time with his children. In his announcement, Keele also acknowledged \u201cdaylight between our worldviews\u201d with boss Elon Musk, who hasn\u2019t commented on Keele\u2019s exit.<\/p>\n \u201cI love my two toddlers and I don\u2019t get to see them enough,\u201d Keele wrote, posting the news on both X and LinkedIn. Despite calling his time at the AI startup \u201cincredible\u201d and working with Musk \u201cthe adventure of a lifetime,\u201d he said he couldn\u2019t keep \u201criding two horses at once \u2014 the family and the job.\u201d<\/p>\n Keele\u2019s news prompted an outpouring of support on social media from xAI colleagues as well as parents. When he joined xAI in May 2024 as its first legal head, he had just launched his own, very short-lived fractional legal outfit. \u201cKeele Law had a good run (~3 weeks!), but I couldn\u2019t pass up an opportunity to run legal at xAI,\u201d he wrote at the time, calling himself \u201cbeyond stoked, and insanely lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n Keele arrived just before xAI announced a massive $6 billion Series B funding round in May 2024, backed by heavy hitters like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, valuing the company at $24 billion. Soon after, xAI began experiencing rapid growth and, in March of this year, acquired X, Musk\u2019s social media company, in a deal that, said Musk at the time, valued xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion.<\/p>\n Before his entrepreneurial stint, Keele had been head of legal at autonomous aircraft maker Elroy Air and general counsel at Airbus\u2019s Silicon Valley innovation center.<\/p>\n Taking over is Lily Lim, who, before becoming a lawyer, was a rocket scientist at NASA, working on spacecraft navigation for the project that mapped Venus\u2019s surface. She joined xAI in late 2024 as a privacy and IP specialist after legal stints at numerous firms and companies like ServiceNow.<\/p>\n Keele\u2019s departure fits an ongoing pattern of executive turnover across Musk\u2019s empire. X CEO Linda Yaccarino left last month<\/a>, and Tesla has lost several top executives recently. Musk \u2014 who also has numerous longstanding lieutenants \u2014 openly expects employees to work long hours, even if it means sleeping at the office<\/a>, as happened when he acquired X, formerly Twitter.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span> Some newer companies appear to have adopted a similar mentality to get ahead of rivals, including AI coding startup Cognition, which is looking to aggressively shrink its team. In fact, its CEO recently told employees in an email that he doesn\u2019t believe in work-life balance<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n