Overview

• Igor Babuschkin stepped down from xAI on August 13 to establish Babuschkin Ventures.
• Babuschkin Ventures will back AI safety research and invest in startups developing agentic AI systems.
• During his xAI tenure he led the build-out of the Memphis supercluster and accelerated frontier model releases.
• A dinner with Max Tegmark inspired his shift from engineering to funding efforts in AI safety.
• His departure follows recent exits by xAI’s legal head Robert Keele and X CEO Linda Yaccarino as xAI faces scrutiny over Grok’s harmful outputs.