xAI Legal Chief Departs: Family & Worldview Differences Cited
Robert Keele, xAI’s head of legal, has announced his departure from Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence venture after just over a year in the role. Keele cited a desire to dedicate more time to his young children, alongside acknowledging “daylight between our worldviews” with his high-profile boss, who has yet to comment on the exit.
In a public statement shared on both X and LinkedIn, Keele expressed a deep affection for his two toddlers, lamenting that he wasn’t seeing them enough. While describing his tenure at the AI startup as “incredible” and his collaboration with Musk as “the adventure of a lifetime,” he concluded that he could no longer manage “riding two horses at once — the family and the job.” His announcement prompted a wave of support on social media, notably from xAI colleagues and fellow parents.
Keele joined xAI in May 2024 as its inaugural legal chief, a rapid pivot from a very brief entrepreneurial stint running his own fractional legal service. At the time, he had expressed immense enthusiasm for the opportunity, noting that while his independent venture, Keele Law, had a short run of approximately three weeks, he simply “couldn’t pass up an opportunity to run legal at xAI,” calling himself “beyond stoked, and insanely lucky.”
His arrival coincided with a period of significant expansion for xAI. Shortly after Keele came on board, the company announced a substantial $6 billion Series B funding round in May 2024, attracting major investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, which propelled xAI’s valuation to an estimated $24 billion. The startup continued its rapid ascent, culminating in March of this year with its acquisition of X, Musk’s social media platform. According to Musk at the time, this deal valued xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion, underscoring the AI firm’s dramatic growth. Prior to his work at xAI and his entrepreneurial foray, Keele had served as head of legal at autonomous aircraft manufacturer Elroy Air and as general counsel for Airbus’s Silicon Valley innovation center.
Stepping into the role of xAI’s legal head is Lily Lim. Lim brings a unique background to the position; before her career in law, she was a rocket scientist at NASA, where she contributed to spacecraft navigation for the project that meticulously mapped Venus’s surface. She joined xAI in late 2024 as a privacy and intellectual property specialist, following legal tenures at various firms and companies, including ServiceNow.
Keele’s departure aligns with a recurring trend of executive turnover observed across Elon Musk’s various enterprises. Recent high-profile exits include Linda Yaccarino, who stepped down as CEO of X last month, and several top executives from Tesla. Musk is widely known for his demanding work ethic and openly expects employees to commit to long hours, sometimes even necessitating sleeping at the office, a practice famously observed during his acquisition of Twitter, now X. This intense work culture is not exclusive to Musk’s ecosystem; some newer tech companies, particularly within the competitive AI sector, appear to be adopting a similar philosophy. For instance, the CEO of AI coding startup Cognition recently informed employees via email that he does not endorse the concept of work-life balance, signaling a broader industry push for aggressive growth at all costs.