Co-founder of Elon Musk's xAI leaves the startup – why he's leaving
xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin leaves the company and establishes Babuschkin Ventures to promote AI startups and research on artificial intelligence.
Igor Babushkin co-founded the startup xAI with Elon Musk in 2023—now he's leaving the company. He announced this on Wednesday on X. "Today was my last day at xAI, the company I co-founded with Elon Musk in 2023," Babushkin wrote.
The reason for his departure: He's launching his own venture capital firm, Babuschkin Ventures. With it, he aims to support AI startups and advance AI security research—those that "advance humanity and unlock the mysteries of the universe."
Do you have a contentpass subscription but still want to view external content from third-party providers? Then click "agree" and we will integrate external content and services from selected third-party providers into our offering to improve your user experience. You can view a current list of these third-party providers at any time in the privacy policy (link to privacy). In this context, user profiles (e.g. based on cookie IDs) can be created and enriched, even outside the EEA. In this case, your consent also includes the transfer of certain personal data to third countries, including the USA, in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. Further details on data processing can be found in our privacy policy and in the privacy policy, both of which are available at any time in the footer of our offering. You can exercise your consent to the integration of external content at any time in the footer of our offering via the "Revocation Tracking" link.
Babushkin is concerned with creating AI that "benefits humanity," he says on X. The same cannot be said of the chatbot Grok. Just in recent weeks, the Grok chatbot has caused several scandals, including anti-Semitic statements and AI-generated nude videos of celebrities .
In his post on X, Babushkin discusses the early days of xAI and what he learned from Elon Musk. Developing a superintelligence has always been Babushkin's lifelong dream, he writes.
"The early days of xAI weren't easy. Skeptics told us we were too late and that it was impossible to build a leading AI company from scratch in such a short time. But we believed we could do the impossible. In the beginning, everyone pitched in. I developed many of the basic tools the company needed to launch and manage training runs. Later, I took over responsibility for large parts of the technology—from infrastructure to product to applied AI projects."
Babuschkin writes about Elon Musk on X: "I learned two invaluable lessons from Elon: #1 Don't be afraid to dive deep into technical problems myself. #2 Have an almost manic sense of urgency."
Babushkin also has only kind words for the xAI team as he bids farewell. Before founding xAI with Elon Musk, Babushkin worked at Deepmind and OpenAI .
Read also
businessinsider
