‘We Believed We Could Do the Impossible’: Elon Musk’s xAI Cofounder Just Resigned. Here Are 2 ‘Priceless’ Lessons He Learned From the World’s Richest Man.

Igor Babuschkin announced this week that he is leaving the company he helped cofound with Elon Musk to start his own company focused on AI safety research.

Babuschkin posted the news on X, which is owned by xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company.

“Today was my last day at xAI, the company that I helped start with Elon Musk in 2023,” he wrote. “I still remember the day I first met Elon. We talked for hours about AI and what the future might hold.”

Related: ‘My Startup Roots Have Begun Tugging on Me’: A Big Tech CEO Just Quit to Be an Entrepreneur Again

^{Igor Babuschkin, co-founder of xAI, during the Nvidia GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in San Jose, California, US, on Tuesday, March 19, 2024. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg | Getty Images}

Babuschkin wrote that “through blood, sweat, and tears,” they “shipped frontier models faster than any company in history,” and during the process, he earned two “priceless” lessons from Musk.

1. Be fearless

“Be fearless in rolling up your sleeves to personally dig into technical problems,” he wrote. Babuschkin noted that Musk personally worked with the team, flying to a data center and staying all night until the issues were fixed.

2. Have a “maniacal” sense of urgency

“xAI executes at ludicrous speed,” he wrote. “Industry veterans told us that building the Memphis supercluster in 120 days would be impossible. But we believed we could do the impossible.”

Today was my last day at xAI, the company that I helped start with Elon Musk in 2023. I still remember the day I first met Elon, we talked for hours about AI and what the future might hold. We both felt that a new AI company with a different kind of mission was needed.

Building…

— Igor Babuschkin (@ibab) August 13, 2025

Musk replied to his post, offering thanks: “Thanks for helping build xAI! We wouldn’t be here without you.”

Related: Elon Musk’s xAI Is Hiring Engineers for Its Anime ‘AI Companions’ — With Salaries Up to $440,000 a Year

^{Join top CEOs, founders and operators at the Level Up conference to unlock strategies for scaling your business, boosting revenue and building sustainable success.}