Uday Ruddarraju, who led infrastructure engineering at Elon Musk’s AI venture xAI, has stepped down from his role. During his tenure of just over a year, Ruddarraju played a crucial role in constructing Colossus, a massive supercomputer with over 200,000 GPUs and in training Grok 3, one of xAI’s advanced AI models.
On July 8, Ruddarraju made an announcement on X (formerly Twitter) that he was leaving, stating, “After an unforgettable ride, I’ve decided to move on from @xai and yesterday was my last day.” Looking back on his stint at the company, he continued, “When I first joined, I thought everyone was absolutely nuts for thinking we could deploy 100K GPUs in 4 months, especially without a fully functioning site. Seeing us depart and doubling that, and above all else successfully train Grok 3 made me extremely proud. and highly glad to have been wrong.”
He also complimented Elon Musk’s leadership and ambitious mission at xAI. “Thanks @elonmusk and the entire xAI team for the unusual chance to assist in building something really foundational with Colossus.”. It was an honor to be included in a mission this ambitious, and to get to see from the inside what does relentless focus and execution look like,” Ruddarraju said. He further stated, “Reporting to Elon and learning directly from him was by far the highlight of working at xAI.”
Ruddarraju followed this up with appreciation for his peers, stating, “Special thanks to everyone on the infrastructure team who exceeded impossible expectations, and the entire research team for your collaboration throughout. You’re the best! I am certain building Colossus and training Grok 3 are certainly career highlights I will always remember.”
Soon after resigning at xAI, Ruddarraju confirmed that he would be working at OpenAI. OpenAI President Greg Brockman initially announced the news on X, welcoming Ruddarraju and three other engineers. Ruddarraju retweeted Brockman’s post, adding, “Excited to join you, Greg Brockman!”
