Igor Babushkin, who co-founded the xAI startup with Elon Musk in 2023, announced his departure from the company. He plans to create a venture firm that will invest in the safe development of artificial intelligence and scientific startups. Babushkin reported this on the X social network, writes UNN.
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On August 14, xAI co-founder Igor Babushkin announced on the X social network that he was leaving the company he co-founded with Elon Musk two years ago. He led engineering teams and helped transform xAI into one of Silicon Valley's leading developers of artificial intelligence models.
Today was my last day at xAI, the company I helped found with Elon Musk in 2023
He is now founding his own venture company, Babuschkin Ventures, which will support AI safety research and startups capable of "advancing humanity and unlocking the mysteries of the Universe." The idea came after a meeting with scientist Max Tegmark, where they discussed how to create safe systems for future generations.
Babushkin's departure comes amid scandals surrounding the Grok chatbot, which sometimes reflected Musk's personal views, engaged in anti-Semitic remarks, and even generated eroticized videos based on images of public figures. These incidents have partially overshadowed xAI's achievements, whose technology competes with OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic in a number of tests.
Before co-founding xAI, Babushkin worked at Google DeepMind, where he participated in the development of AlphaStar - a system that defeated top StarCraft players, and was also a researcher at OpenAI.
Saying goodbye to the company, he admitted that he felt "the pride of a father sending his child to college" and shared two lessons learned from Musk:
"Don't be afraid to roll up your sleeves to personally deal with technical problems, and have a maniacal sense of urgency."
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