Yann LeCun, one of the “godfathers of AI,” is in something of a sweet spot professionally. He’s still well respected in the field he helped define; he’s free from the control of the big frontier labs that dominate the space; and his own project is so young that no one expects much of it yet. So he’s making the most of his freedom by taking shots at everyone else—especially Elon Musk. In an interview with CNBC, LeCun decided to call it as he sees it—and it seems when he looks at xAI, he doesn’t see much worth respecting. “XAI is kind of a failure, frankly,” he told the outlet, citing the departure of basically every founding member not named Elon Musk. “Elon is now in a position that is very, very difficult for him to kind of hire top people in AI, because he’s kind of, you know, not behaved in sort of very good ways toward the… previous team.” None of the xAI founders have really had much to say on their way out the door, but they all have headed for the door. The very last holdout of the original 11 who went in with Musk to start the AI lab, Ross Nordeen, was reportedly forced out by Musk, having his access to xAI systems abruptly cut off and getting unceremoniously removed from the company group chat.