Sutskever steps into CEO role at own startup after Meta poaches Daniel Gross

Sutskever steps into CEO role at own startup after Meta poaches Daniel Gross

04 Jul 2025, 11:46 AM

Sutskever also said Daniel Levy will become the startup's president.

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Ilya Sutskever said he is formally stepping into the role of CEO at his AI startup Safe Superintelligence, which he had launched last year after leaving OpenAI.

Sutskever's decision comes amid reports that Safe Intelligence's co-founder and CEO Daniel Gross is leaving the startup to join Meta, which has been on a hiring frenzy from rival firms.

While Sutskever did not specify that Gross is joining Meta, he said "Gross’s time with us has been winding down, and as of June 29 he is officially no longer a part of Safe Superintelligence".

Sutskever also said Daniel Levy will become the startup's president. Levy had also left OpenAI last year to join Safe Superintelligence as co-founder and principal scientist.

"The technical team continues to report to me," Sutskever added.

⁠Sutskever also addressed rumors about companies looking to acquire Safe Superintelligence. "We are flattered by their attention but are focused on seeing our work through," he noted.

Earlier this year, Meta tried to acquire Safe Intelligence but for now it appears to have settled on its co-founder Gross, who previously led AI teams at Apple after the iPhone maker had acquired his startup Cue.

Meta's hiring of Gross is part of its CEO Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to bolster his AI ambition.

Zuckerberg went on a hiring spree after first making a significant investment in data labeling company Scale AI last month. As part of the deal, he also brought in Scale AI's co-founder Alexandr Wang to lead Meta's superintelligence unit as chief AI officer.

Earlier this month Wang wrote on X that he will be working alongside former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.

Wang also listed the names of the string of employees hired by Meta from rival companies OpenAI and DeepMind.

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