Elon Musk’s Boring Company, xAI Get In-House Legal Overhaul

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has installed new law leaders at two of the private companies he controls, one of which was once a subsidiary of soon-to-be-public Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

The Boring Co., a tunnel-building venture founded by Musk that separated from SpaceX in 2018, has brought on Stephen Schwarzbach as head of legal to take over a job vacated by longtime head of legal affairs Ashley Steinberg.

Separately, as Bloomberg Law previously reported, Musk’s $200 billion artificial intelligence startup xAI Corp. has named James Burnham its new top lawyer. He most recently launched an AI think tank after serving as general counsel for the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency.

Burnham, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, said in a LinkedIn post that he’s looking to recruit “others to the fight” as he serves as general counsel for xAI and X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. His appointment came after Musk settled a severance pay lawsuit filed by several former top Twitter executives, including ex-legal and policy chief Vijaya Gadde.

“For those who value objective truth and free expression, there is no more important company in the world,” Burnham said via LinkedIn.

Schwarzbach also didn’t respond to requests for comment. In a post this week to his LinkedIn profile, he noted Boring is in hiring mode and included a video of the company’s Prufrock tunneling machines. Boring is looking for a paralegal to work with its legal head and “other principals,” according to a job listing.

Schwarzbach, who had his own fractional general counsel firm called Verissimus Advisors, previously spent time in private practice at Kirkland & Ellis and Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Schwarzbach also worked for Fiume Capital—the family office of brothers Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta III, who made their fortune with the Ultimate Fighting Championship—and chemical products maker Huntsman Corp. He joined Boring after its valuation has slipped in recent months.

At xAI, Burnham joins an outfit whose valuation has surged. He’s also its third top lawyer since summer following the exits of Lily Lim and Robert Keele.

Musk, advised by Sullivan & Cromwell, agreed this year to fold X’s operations into xAI. Within the past few months at least a half-dozen lawyers affiliated with xAI have left as it prepares to be integrated into X’s larger law department.

The exodus came despite at least one addition in Karen Anderson, a former general counsel at electronic payments technology company VeriFone Inc., who joined xAI in October after serving as legal chief and business administrator for Proactive AI Lab Inc., a startup known as Palona AI that launched this year.

Musk’s Legal Lieutenants

The allure of working on cutting-edge technology and related legal and policy matters has long brought talented lawyers into Musk’s orbit. The mogul’s net worth rose by another $600 million upon news of SpaceX’s plans to go public.

Burnham, a former Jones Day partner and one-time US Supreme Court clerk, has also been involved in litigation finance. He made the switch to the in-house world the same month as Zina Bash, another prominent conservative litigator and ex-Supreme Court clerk who is now the top lawyer at Base Power Co. Burnham touted the household battery startup, which has raised $1 billion in financing, as a “very cool company” in a recent LinkedIn post.

Burnham joined xAI ahead of the company announcing a data center deal with Humain, a Saudi Arabian AI enterprise. Humain’s new general counsel James Emerson, hired in September from Japan’s Rakuten Group Inc., said in an email that he and Burnham took the lead on legal matters for each side.

Musk often shares personnel among the entities he controls. The demands of working for him, however, have often led to high turnover.

Tesla Inc. had a revolving door of legal leaders for years, with the turnstile finally halted when Brandon Ehrhart was hired in 2023. Musk’s thin patience for attorneys—including outside counsel—and the rigors of a high-paced work environment at companies he controls have contributed to the churn.

Lim, the second lawyer hired at xAI after Keele, praised Musk and her former colleagues via X, but added that she worked “100+/hrs a week” at a company she compared to the “equivalent of the first stage of an interplanetary rocket ship.” Lim and xAI parted ways after an eventful few months, during which time the company overhauled its AI tutoring initiatives and saw its chatbot Grok be criticized for inappropriate posts, even if it’s now cleared for US government use.

Lim’s departure came a month after she appeared on a panel discussion at the annual summit of the ChIPs Network Inc., an organization connecting some of the most high-profile women in technology law and intellectual property.

Life After Elon

Opportunities elsewhere are one upside of leaving the Musk universe.

Steinberg, Boring’s former head of legal and first in-house lawyer, last month was named head of strategic initiatives at venture capital firm 137 Ventures Management LLC. Steinberg, a former senior associate at Hogan Lovells in Washington, joined Boring in 2018.

Steinberg will help 137 Ventures’ portfolio companies navigate “public policy challenges at the federal, state, and local level,” according to its website. 137 Ventures owns stakes in SpaceX and other notable technology companies.

Keele, who left xAI in August, is now general counsel for Skydio Inc., an increasingly influential drone maker and US defense contractor. Skydio co-founder and CEO Adam Bry said in a statement that Keele will help its “family of flying robots” set a high standard for “innovation, safety, and trust.”

Raghu Rao, a former head of commercial legal at xAI, joined Oracle Corp.’s cloud infrastructure group as a director on Dec. 1. Rao said via LinkedIn that his role puts him at the intersection of cloud and AI product initiatives. He is also an investor in General Counsel AI Inc., a startup that raised $60 million last month.