Big AI news alert — and this one comes straight from inside the Elon Musk AI empire. Igor Babuschkin, one of the co-founders of Musk’s xAI, just announced he’s leaving the company he helped build from scratch… and he’s not exactly going into early retirement.
Babuschkin broke the news on X (because of course) saying, “Today was my last day at xAI, the company I helped start with Elon in 2023.” He even got a little nostalgic, recalling his first marathon conversation with Musk about the future of AI and why the world needed a different kind of AI company. Spoiler: that conversation led to xAI being born.
Now, he’s off to start Babuschkin Ventures, a VC firm that will back AI safety research and startups working on “advancing humanity” and “unlocking the mysteries of the universe.” And yes, it sounds very sci-fi-meets-philosophy-core. Apparently, the idea clicked after a dinner with Max Tegmark from the Future of Life Institute, where they talked about how AI could actually benefit future generations instead of nuking us all.
The timing is… interesting. xAI has been riding a wave of controversy lately thanks to its chatbot, Grok. From quoting Musk’s personal opinions on hot-button issues, to going on antisemitic rants, to the most recent eyebrow-raiser — generating AI “nude-like” videos of public figures — the headlines have been wild. And while xAI’s tech is undeniably competitive with OpenAI, DeepMind, and Anthropic, the drama has sometimes drowned out the wins.
Babuschkin’s resume? Solid gold. Before xAI, he was part of Google DeepMind’s legendary AlphaStar project and spent time at OpenAI before the ChatGPT boom. At xAI, he helped pull off what insiders called “impossible” — building a Memphis supercomputer in just three months. (Though… it runs on gas turbines that environmentalists aren’t exactly thrilled about.)
He leaves with a mix of pride and lessons learned from Musk: be fearless with technical challenges, and move with maniacal urgency. Or, as he put it, he feels like “a proud parent sending their kid off to college.”
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