A major reorganisation is underway at xAI as it aligns more closely with SpaceX ahead of the space company's expected IPO. SpaceX executive Michael Nicholls said xAI is currently behind its rivals and is acting decisively to improve its standing, according to Business Insider.
Several senior positions have been filled as part of the shake-up, with Devendra Chaplot, Aman Madaan and Aditya Gupta among those now leading work on training systems, products and infrastructure.
SpaceX, now the owner of xAI following its acquisition earlier this year, is anticipated to seek a public listing in 2026, with reports suggesting a potential valuation exceeding $2 trillion.
ALSO READ: US Court Rules To Keep Anthropic Labeled A Supply-Chain Risk, For Now
Who Are The Indian-Origin Engineers xAI Promoted?
Devendra Chaplot, formerly with Meta Platforms and Thinking Machines Lab, has joined xAI and will head pre-training. This phase forms the backbone of model development, enabling systems to learn from expansive datasets spanning text, images and software code, as per BI report.
As per his LinkedIn profile, Chaplot has a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay and a PhD in Machine Learning from Carnegie Mellon University.
Aman Madaan is set to supervise the model factory and associated tooling, encompassing infrastructure, data pipelines and training workflows essential to model development.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Madaan completed a B.Tech in Computer Science from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and an M.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay. He later completed a Master of Science and a PhD degree from Carnegie Mellon University.
Aditya Gupta will oversee post-training and reinforcement learning: the stage where systems are honed, aligned with user expectations and optimised for applications like chatbots and coding tools.
Gupta has a B.Tech in Mathematics and Computing from IIT Guwahati and a Master of Science in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin.
Other Organisational Changes At xAI
Michael Nicolls, senior vice-president of Starlink at SpaceX, has been appointed president of xAI, according to a source familiar with the matter cited by BI.
The product unit will be led by Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsburg, who moved to xAI from Cursor earlier this year. Their responsibilities cover flagship products such as Grok Main, Grok Voice and Grok Imagine.
Essential Business Intelligence, Continuous LIVE TV, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice and Latest Stories — On NDTV Profit.
