Andrew Milich, Head of Engineering and Product at Cursor, has joined xAI on the same day as his colleague Jason Ginsberg, in what the AI industry has described as one of the most aggressive talent poaches of 2026. The simultaneous departure of two senior engineering leaders from Cursor — one of the fastest-growing AI startups valued at over $10 billion — stunned the developer tools space.
Milich was instrumental in shaping Cursor's product direction, helping transform it from a promising AI coding assistant into a dominant force in the developer productivity market that counts thousands of engineering teams as paying customers.
The double hire by xAI is particularly notable given the company's simultaneous struggle with co-founder departures, suggesting a deliberate strategy to replace departing research talent with proven product engineering leaders who can accelerate the commercialization of xAI's technology. The move also highlights xAI's likely interest in building competitive developer-facing AI products and infrastructure.
