'I learned two things from Elon...' says co-founder of xAI as he quits to start his own AI venture

xAI

Igor Babuschkin, who co-founded Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI in 2023 and led its engineering teams, announced his resignation on Wednesday in a post on X. The former Google DeepMind and OpenAI researcher played a pivotal role in turning xAI into one of Silicon Valley’s top AI model developers in just two years.

Babuschkin will now head Babuschkin Ventures, a new VC firm dedicated to AI safety research and funding startups aimed at “advancing humanity and unlocking the mysteries of our universe.” He says the idea took shape after a dinner with Max Tegmark of the Future of Life Institute, where they discussed building AI systems that could benefit future generations.

Babuschkin says he leaves “like a proud parent” and credits Musk for teaching him two core lessons: personally dive into technical problems, and act with relentless urgency. “I learned 2 priceless lessons from Elon: #1 be fearless in rolling up your sleeves to personally dig into technical problems, #2 have a maniacal sense of urgency,” said Babuschkin.

Musk, in a reply to his co-founder's tweet, thanked Babuschkin. "Thanks for helping build @xAI! We wouldn’t be here without you," said the Tesla CEO.

His exit follows a rocky period for xAI. The company’s Grok chatbot has faced backlash for incidents ranging from parroting Musk’s personal views on controversial topics, to producing antisemitic outputs, and most recently enabling the creation of AI-generated, partially nude videos of public figures such as Taylor Swift. These controversies have, at times, overshadowed Grok’s strong technical performance against rival models from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic.

Before xAI, Babuschkin was part of the DeepMind team behind AlphaStar, the 2019 AI system that defeated top StarCraft players, and he also worked at OpenAI prior to the launch of ChatGPT.

Reflecting on xAI’s early challenges, Babuschkin recalled being told it was “impossible” to build a supercomputer in Memphis in just three months — yet the team delivered, albeit with environmental concerns over the gas turbines powering it.