Robert Keele, the head of legal at Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI, resigned this week after just over a year in the role, citing a need to prioritize time with his two young children. His departure highlights the intense work culture across Musk’s companies and ongoing executive turnover.
Keele announced his exit on LinkedIn and X, stating, “I love my two toddlers and I don’t get to see them enough.” He described his tenure as “incredible” and working with Musk as “the adventure of a lifetime,” but acknowledged philosophical differences, noting “daylight between our worldviews” with his former boss. Musk has not publicly commented on the resignation.
Tenure Marked by Rapid Growth
Keele joined xAI in May 2024 as its first legal chief, abandoning his newly launched fractional legal firm after just three weeks. His arrival preceded xAI’s massive $6 billion Series B funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, which valued the company at $24 billion.
His legal leadership spanned a period of aggressive expansion, including xAI’s acquisition of Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) in March 2025. That deal positioned xAI at an $80 billion valuation while valuing X at $33 billion, creating a combined entity worth $113 billion. Industry analysts note the acquisition significantly complicated xAI’s legal landscape, requiring navigation of intellectual property, regulatory compliance, and international data privacy frameworks.
A Pattern of Executive Exodus
Keele’s resignation fits a broader trend of leadership churn within Musk’s enterprises. X CEO Linda Yaccarino exited last month, and Tesla has seen at least four high-profile departures since June. Executive turnover at Tesla reportedly reaches 44% annually for direct reports to Musk, far above the 9% average at companies like Meta or Amazon.
Musk’s demanding leadership style, including expectations for extreme work hours and office “sleepovers” to meet deadlines, is widely seen as a driving factor. “This isn’t isolated to xAi, think it’s structural across Musk’s empire,” said tech analyst Miriam Vance of AInvest. “The pressure cooker environment filters for unwavering dedication but risks sustainable talent retention”.
NASA Alum Steps In
Lily Lim, a former NASA rocket scientist who worked on the Venus-surface-mapping Magellan mission, will succeed Keele as xAI’s legal head. Lim joined the company in late 2024 as a privacy and intellectual property specialist after roles at ServiceNow and other firms. Her technical background,nd rare among legal executives, positions her to navigate AI’s complex regulatory terrain as xAI pursues a $12 billion investment for its second data center, “Colossus 2”.
Work-Life Tensions in AI’s “High-Intensity Phase”
Keele’s departure underscores Silicon Valley’s ongoing reckoning with work-life balance. His metaphor of struggling to “ride two horses at once, the family and the job” echoes similar resignations, such as OpenAI’s former trust and safety head Dave Willner, who left in 2023 to teach his children to swim and ride bikes.
Yet the pace remains unrelenting at xAI and competitors like AI coding startup Cognition, whose CEO recently declared he “doesn’t believe in work-life balance”. As Keele stated plainly: “Time to pick one”. His exit signals that even dream roles in AI’s defining era may come at unsustainable personal costs and that Musk’s relentless culture continues filtering its leadership.
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