Elon Musk's xAI loses co-founder Igor Babuschkin, who's leaving to start venture firm

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesIgor Babuschkin, a founding member of Elon Musk's xAI, said Wednesday that he's leaving the artificial intelligence startup to launch his own venture firm."Today was my last day at xAI, the company that I helped start with Elon Musk in 2023," Babuschkin wrote on X, which is owned by xAI. "I still remember the day I first met Elon, we talked for hours AI and what the future might hold

We both felt that a new AI company with a different kind of mission was needed

Building AI that advances humanity has been my lifelong dream."Musk wrote, in response, "Thanks for helping build @xAI! We wouldn't be here without you."Babuschkin said he's starting Babuschkin Ventures to support AI safety re and invest in startups in "AI and agentic systems that advance humanity and unlock the mysteries of our universe."A former re engineer for Google's DeepMind and ex-member of OpenAI's nical staff, Babuschkin recounted some of xAI's major operational achievements during his tenure, including building out engineering teams at the company."Through blood sweat and tears, our team's blistering velocity built the Memphis supercluster, and shipped frontier models faster than any company in history," he wrote.The facility in Memphis cesses data and trains the models that power xAI's Grok chatbot.Locals have tested xAI's operations in Memphis, especially its use of natural gas-burning turbines to power its data centers

Emissions from the turbines are reportedly worsening the poor air quality in the West Tennessee city.At the time he was preparing to go into with Musk, Babuschkin wrote that he believed "very soon AI could reason beyond the level of humans," and was concerned making sure such nology is "used for good."He said that, "Elon had warned of the dangers of powerful AI for years," and d his vision of "AI used to benefit humanity."The company has a rocky track record when it comes to AI safety.In May, xAI's Grok chatbot automatically generated and spread false posts alleged "white genocide" in South Africa

After that, the company apologized and said Grok's strange behavior was caused by an "unauthorized modification" to the chatbot's system mpts, which help inform the way it behaves and interacts with users.In July, xAI found itself apologizing for another blem with Grok

After a code , the chatbot automatically generated and spread false and antisemitic content across X, including posts praising Adolf Hitler.The European Union requested a meeting last month with representatives from xAI to discuss blems with X and the integrated Grok chatbot.Babuschkin and xAI didn't respond to requests for .Other chatbots have also generated false or otherwise dangerous outputs in response to queries

OpenAI's ChatGPT was recently called out for giving bad health advice to a user who wound up in the emergency room