Igor Babuschkin, co-founder of Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI, has stepped down to start Babuschkin Ventures, a venture capital firm dedicated to AI safety research and startups “advancing humanity.” Babuschkin announced his exit Wednesday on X, recalling the early conversations with Musk that sparked xAI’s creation in 2023.
His decision follows a dinner with Max Tegmark, founder of the Future of Life Institute, where they discussed building AI systems that safeguard future generations. The move comes amid xAI controversies over its chatbot Grok, including biased responses, offensive rants, and a recent feature enabling AI-generated explicit videos of public figures.
Despite the scandals, xAI’s models remain competitive with offerings from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic. Babuschkin previously worked on DeepMind’s AlphaStar and at OpenAI. Reflecting on his tenure, he cited two lessons from Musk: “Be fearless in tackling technical problems” and “have a maniacal sense of urgency.”
