Friday, September 5, 2025

The exit of Elon Musk’s xAI CFO is the latest example of executive turnover at high-profile startups

Good morning. I’ve been writing about the uptick in CFO turnover. The latest high-profile departure is at multibillionaire Elon Musk’s xAI.

Mike Liberatore stepped down abruptly as the finance chief of Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal citing anonymous sources. Liberatore was hired in April and reportedly left in late July. The reasons for his departure are not known, but he followed other high-profile exits from xAI of late. The company did not immediately respond to my request for comment.

Before joining xAI, Liberatore worked at Airbnb for almost nine years—most recently as VP of finance and corporate development—and had previously served in several business unit CFO roles. He’s also worked at Intel, eBay, and PayPal. During his brief tenure at xAI, he reportedly helped raise $10 billion in funding and expanded data center operations.

Launched by Musk in July 2023, xAI is a competitor of OpenAI. Both companies develop large language models and AI assistants—OpenAI with ChatGPT, xAI with Grok—that target overlapping user bases.

Liberatore’s departure follows a wave of exits, including cofounder Igor Babuschkin (who left to start a VC firm focused on AI safety), General Counsel Robert Keele after one year, and senior lawyer Raghu Rao. xAI’s leadership is highly centralized under Musk, with no publicly disclosed independent board.

Michael Morris, a professor at Columbia Business School, shared his assessment with me. He noted that Keele cited differences in worldview with Musk and family priorities in his LinkedIn post about leaving. Of course, Musk also played a key role in the Trump White House earlier this year.

Morris also observed that executive turnover among Musk’s direct reports at Tesla is 44%, compared to about 9% at Meta, Amazon, and Netflix; overall, Tesla’s executive turnover rate is 27%, nearly double the industry average.

“Analysts point to Musk’s demanding, high-contact leadership style—managing up to 18 direct reports at once—as a key reason for the trend,” Morris said. “This pattern is visible not only at Tesla but also at X and xAI, suggesting structural factors rather than isolated events.”

He added that many executives leave rather than risk being blamed when new initiatives encounter regulatory hurdles: “Executives don’t want to become the ‘fall guy.’”

What fuels mass exits?
xAI isn’t alone in seeing mass executive departures. Last year, OpenAI also saw multiple senior departures—such as cofounder John Schulman and CTO Mira Murati. Also in 2024, at the DNA testing startup 23andMe, all seven independent directors resigned simultaneously, citing major disagreements with CEO Anne Wojcicki and her plans to take the company private.

Frequent executive departures often indicate strategic misalignment or a resistant company culture, especially in founder-led startups and fast-moving AI companies, Martha Heller, CEO of technology executive search firm Heller, told me.

“In AI-focused companies, the very public failures of new large language models and uncertainty over true AI ROI can create an additional layer of finger-pointing, further upsetting leadership stability,” Heller said.

Robert Kelley, professor of management at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, explained that if top-level executives are continually leaving, “it’s a vote of no confidence in either the CEO, the board, or the strategy of the company.”

It’s unusual at startups for most executives to just walk away in a short period of time, Kelley said. Most people who join do so because they believe in the company and also think there’s going to be a big payoff, he explained.

To stem disruption, if a notable number of executives leave a company, transparent communication to customers and employees is key, Heller said.

And the CEO of the company should also “take a look in the mirror and ask the hard question, ‘Am I the problem?’” Kelley said.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Leaderboard

Some notable moves this week:

Jamie McConnell was appointed CFO of Sweetgreen, Inc. (NYSE: SG), a restaurant brand, effective Sept. 22. McConnell succeeds Mitch Reback, who will retire Sept. 21. Reback, who has served as CFO since 2015, will remain in an advisory role for six months. McConnell brings more than 20 years of financial leadership experience. Most recently, she served as Chipotle’s chief accounting and administrative officer. Before Chipotle, McConnell served in a variety of senior finance and accounting roles at Aviation Capital Group, Rent-A-Center, Allergan, and Deloitte.

Brian Robins was appointed CFO of Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW), an AI Data Cloud company, effective Sept. 22. Snowflake also announced that Mike Scarpelli is retiring as CFO. Scarpelli will stay a Snowflake employee for a transition period. Robins has served as CFO of GitLab Inc., a technology company, since October 2020. Before that, he was CFO of Sisense, Cylance, AlienVault, and Verisign.

Alka Tandan, CFO of Gainsight, a customer success platform provider, has announced she will be leaving the company after almost six and a half years in the role. Tandan will remain in an advisory capacity at Gainsight for a transition period of a few months. Gainsight's longtime CEO and founder, Nick Mehta, stepped down in August and has been succeeded by Chuck Ganapathi, who previously served as president and chief operating officer at the company. In a LinkedIn post, Tandan said she is looking forward to spending quality time with her 1-year-old son "before embarking on my next chapter."

Faisal Qadir was promoted to EVP and CFO of Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPB), a home essentials company with brands such as Black+Decker, effective immediately. Qadir succeeds Jeremy W. Smeltser, who will remain a full-time employee through Dec. 31. Smeltser’s departure is part of Spectrum Brands’ previously stated objective to reduce spending and is not the result of any disagreement with the company, its board, or management, according to an SEC filing. Qadir, who has served as VP of strategic finance and enterprise reporting at Spectrum Brands since 2012, entered the CFO role under a new employment agreement.

Kenneth Lynard was appointed CFO of Pharming Group N.V. (Nasdaq: PHAR), effective Oct. 1. Lynard has more than 20 years of global leadership experience in the life sciences industry. Most recently, he served as CFO of Schoeller Allibert and Zentiva, a European pharmaceutical company. He previously served as CFO at Affidea, and worked for Gilead Sciences, a leading US-based biopharmaceutical company, as SVP and CFO of global commercial operations, R&D and manufacturing.

Big Deal

Tech company Skillsoft has released the results of its 2025 Global Skills Intelligence Survey. The research finds that widening skills gaps are becoming barriers to growth, compounded by outdated approaches to talent development. Just 10% of survey respondents say they are fully confident that their workforce has the skills needed to achieve business goals over the next 12 to 24 months, with leadership, AI, and technology identified as the most significant shortages. Only 20% believe their talent strategies are aligned with organizational goals.

Almost a third (33%) say employee engagement issues are not being effectively addressed. Regarding AI adoption hurdles, 41% say their workforce is resistant to change, and 28% point to the need for greater technical expertise. The findings are based on a global survey of 1,000 HR and learning and development professionals across the U.S., UK, Germany, and Australia.