OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever says he is stepping into the CEO role at Safe Superintelligence, the AI startup he launched in 2024. In a post on X, Sutskever confirmed Thursday that Daniel Gross, the startup’s co-founder and CEO, departed the company as of June 29. Safe Superintelligence co-founder Daniel Levy is becoming president of the startup, according to Sutskever.
The announcement follows weeks of reporting that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in advanced talks to hire Gross, as well as his longtime investing partner, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. At one point, Zuckerberg reportedly attempted to acquire all of Safe Superintelligence, a startup most recently valued at $32 billion. Sutskever addressed those reports as well.
“You might have heard rumors of companies looking to acquire us. We are flattered by their attention but are focused on seeing our work through,” said Sutskever. “We have the compute, we have the team, and we know what to do. Together we will keep building safe superintelligence.”
Naturally, Gross’ departure may raise questions around the startup. If Safe Superintelligence was close to its goal — surely a groundbreaking technology, as it’s described — why would its co-founder leave to start something new, seemingly at Meta?
Notably, Safe Superintelligence describes itself as the world’s “first straight-shot SSI lab,” meaning the company has no other products or ambitions outside of developing, well, safe superintelligence. That’s the name, that’s the product, that’s its whole thing. Sutskever started Safe Superintelligence shortly after leaving OpenAI, where he played a role in the brief ousting of CEO Sam Altman.
Meanwhile, it seems likely that Meta Superintelligence Labs will develop technology that powers lots of the company’s products. In Zuckerberg’s memo announcing the new unit, he referenced Meta’s expertise in building and growing products that reach billions of people, and cited the early wins Meta has had in AI wearables.
That means Gross, who previously led AI teams at Apple after the iPhone maker acquired his startup, could have a more familiar role at Meta, should he join. Zuckerberg has also nabbed some top researchers from OpenAI and Google DeepMind to fill out his new AI team.
Nevertheless, Sutskever may have his hands full as Safe Superintelligence’s CEO. While he’s held previous high-ranking positions, such as OpenAI’s chief scientist, the CEO role may come with new challenges — such as raising new capital from investors and recruiting top talent. Sutskever notes in his post that he’ll continue to oversee Safe Superintelligence’s technical team.