Robert Keel announced this week that he was stepping down as head of legal at xAI after just over a year on the job, saying he wanted to spend more time with his children. In his announcement, Kille also acknowledged a “difference in worldview” with boss Elon Musk, who did not comment on Kille’s departure.
“I love my two kids and don’t see them enough,” Keel wrote, posting the news on X and LinkedIn. Although he called his time at the artificial intelligence startup “incredible” and working with Musk “the adventure of a lifetime,” he said he couldn’t continue to “ride two horses at once — family and work.”
Keele’s news sparked a wave of support on social media from colleagues at xAI, as well as his parents. When he joined xAI in May 2024 as its first head of legal, he had just launched his own, very short-lived law firm. “Keele Law didn’t last long (about three weeks!), but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to head up xAI’s legal department,” he wrote at the time, calling himself “extremely happy and incredibly grateful.”
Kill arrived shortly before xAI announced a massive $6 billion Series B funding round in May 2024, backed by heavyweights such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, which valued the company at $24 billion. Shortly thereafter, xAI began to grow rapidly and in March of this year acquired X, Musk’s social network, in a deal that, according to Musk at the time, valued xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion.
Prior to starting his entrepreneurial career, Kil was the head of the legal department at Elroy Air, an autonomous aircraft manufacturer, and general counsel at the Airbus Innovation Center in Silicon Valley.
She is replaced by Lily Lim, who, before becoming a lawyer, was a rocket scientist at NASA and worked on spacecraft navigation for a project to map the surface of Venus. She joined xAI in late 2024 as a privacy and intellectual property specialist after working in the legal departments of numerous firms and companies, such as ServiceNow.
Kila’s departure is in line with a broader trend of leadership changes at Musk’s empire. Last month, CEO Linda Yaccarino left X, and Tesla recently lost several top executives. Musk, who also has numerous long-time associates, openly expects employees to work overtime, even if it means sleeping in the office, as was the case when he acquired X, formerly Twitter.
Some new companies seem to have adopted a similar mindset in order to stay ahead of the competition, including artificial intelligence startup Cognition, which plans to drastically reduce its team. In fact, its CEO recently told employees in an email that he does not believe in work-life balance.
