Ex-OpenAI chief scientist who helped oust Sam Altman to start safe AI company

ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever — who helped lead the effort to oust Sam Altman as the company’s CEO — is starting a new artificial intelligence company.

The company is focused on creating a safe AI environment at a time when some of the biggest tech companies are looking to dominate the generative AI boom, Sutskever said Wednesday.

The company is called Safe Superintelligence and is described on its website as an American firm with offices in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv.

“Our singular focus means no distraction by management overhead or product cycles, and our business model means safety, security, and progress are all insulated from short-term commercial pressures,” Sutskever said in announcing his much-anticipated next move in a post on X.

Sutskever left Microsoft-backed OpenAI in May after playing a key role in CEO Sam Altman’s dramatic firing and rehiring last November.

Sutskever was removed from the company’s board after Altman returned and left the company.

He is joined in the venture by former OpenAI researcher Daniel Levy and Daniel Gross, co-founder of Cue and a former AI lead at Apple.