Robert Keele announced this week that he has stepped down as xAI’s head of legal after just over a year, citing his desire to spend more time with his children. In his announcement, Keele acknowledged a difference in worldviews with Elon Musk, though Musk has not publicly commented on Keele’s departure.
Keele shared the news on X and LinkedIn, expressing his love for his two toddlers and the difficulty of balancing family and work. He described his time at the AI startup as incredible and working with Musk as the adventure of a lifetime, but ultimately felt he could not continue juggling both responsibilities.
His departure sparked an outpouring of support from xAI colleagues and fellow parents. Keele joined xAI in May 2024 as its first legal head, shortly after launching his own short-lived fractional legal practice, Keele Law, which he shut down after just three weeks to take the xAI role.
Keele’s arrival coincided with xAI’s $6 billion Series B funding round in May 2024, backed by major investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, valuing the company at $24 billion. The startup saw rapid growth, and in March of this year, it acquired X, Musk’s social media company, in a deal that reportedly valued xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion.
Before joining xAI, Keele served as head of legal at autonomous aircraft maker Elroy Air and as general counsel at Airbus’s Silicon Valley innovation center.
Lily Lim will take over as xAI’s legal head. Before becoming a lawyer, Lim worked as a rocket scientist at NASA, contributing to spacecraft navigation for a Venus surface mapping project. She joined xAI in late 2024 as a privacy and IP specialist after legal roles at firms and companies like ServiceNow.
Keele’s exit follows a pattern of executive turnover across Musk’s companies. X CEO Linda Yaccarino left last month, and Tesla has seen several top executives depart recently. Musk is known for expecting long hours from employees, even encouraging them to sleep at the office, as happened during his acquisition of X, formerly Twitter.
Meanwhile, some newer companies, like AI coding startup Cognition, are adopting similar high-intensity work cultures. Cognition’s CEO recently told employees in an email that he does not believe in work-life balance, as the company aggressively restructures its team.