xAI’s head of legal Robert Keele is out after just over a year. He’s stepping down to spend more time with his toddlers. Keele flagged “daylight between our worldviews” with Elon Musk but thanked xAI and Musk for “the adventure of a lifetime.”
Keele shared the news on both X and LinkedIn last week.
“I love my two toddlers and I don’t get to see them enough,” Robert Keele wrote.
“I couldn’t keep riding two horses at once — the family and the job.”
Keele joined xAI in May 2024, fresh from a brief run running his own fractional legal firm. Right after he came onboard, xAI raised $6 billion in Series B, doubling its valuation to $24 billion.
The company then grabbed Musk’s social media platform X in a March 2025 deal valuing xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion. Keele was legal chief during this major growth phase.
Stepping up to replace Keele is Lily Lim. Lim’s background is NASA rocket science, having worked on Venus-mapping spacecraft navigation before turning to law. She joined xAI last year focusing on privacy and IP.
Keele’s departure is part of a pattern of high-profile exits from Musk companies. X CEO Linda Yaccarino left only last month. Tesla has also seen top execs quit recently.
Musk’s demanding work culture — known to include long hours and even sleeping at the office — remains under scrutiny. Some newer startups like AI coder Cognition have adopted similar no-work-life balance approaches.
Keele had this to say about his time at xAI:
“Keele Law had a good run (~3 weeks!), but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to run legal at xAI.”
“My time at this AI startup has been incredible.”
