Ilya Sutskever, a prominent figure in the artificial intelligence landscape, has officially assumed the role of CEO at Safe Superintelligence (SSI), the startup he co-founded in 2024. This leadership transition follows the departure of Daniel Gross, who served as SSI's former CEO and has reportedly joined Meta Platforms to lead its AI products division. Sutskever, previously the chief scientist at OpenAI and a co-founder of the ChatGPT maker, confirmed Gross's exit on June 29 via a post on X. Concurrently, co-founder Daniel Levy has been promoted to President, with Sutskever now overseeing both the technical and strategic direction of the company, signaling a renewed commitment to SSI’s core mission.

This executive shift occurs amidst an escalating global AI talent war, where tech giants like Meta Platforms are aggressively pursuing top researchers and high-profile acquisitions, offering multi-million-dollar pay packages. Meta had previously attempted to recruit Sutskever himself and acquire SSI, which holds a significant valuation of $32 billion. Sutskever publicly declined these overtures, stating, “We are flattered by their attention but are focused on seeing our work through.” SSI has successfully raised over $3 billion in funding, including $1 billion in cash last year, dedicated to its singular focus: building safe superintelligent AI that surpasses human intelligence. The startup maintains a low public profile and has yet to release any commercial products.

Daniel Gross's move to Meta aligns with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s broader strategy to consolidate and amplify AI efforts under the newly formed Meta Superintelligence Labs. This division also includes other notable figures such as former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang. Gross and Friedman share a close professional relationship, having co-founded the venture capital firm NFDG, which has backed several high-profile startups, including SSI, Perplexity, and Figma. Meta has even reportedly offered to acquire a minority stake in NFDG's funds through a tender offer, further underscoring its aggressive stance in the AI domain. Prior to his role at SSI, Gross's startup, Cue, which focused on predictive search and AI technology, was acquired by Apple in 2013, after which he joined the iPhone maker as a director overseeing machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Sutskever’s dual role as CEO and chief scientist underscores SSI’s unwavering dedication to its ambitious goal of developing AI that safely exceeds human intelligence. His departure from OpenAI followed his involvement in the dramatic firing and rehiring of Sam Altman in November 2023, and OpenAI subsequently dissolved its safety team after his exit. Despite the intense competitive landscape, Sutskever remains confident in SSI's capabilities and vision, asserting, “We have the compute, we have the team, and we know what to do. Together we will keep building safe superintelligence.”