Sutskever to lead Safe Superintelligence after Meta poaches CEO Gross in AI talent war
(Reuters) -Ilya Sutskever has taken over the reins of Safe Superintelligence (SSI), the artificial intelligence startup he launched last year, after losing CEO Daniel Gross to an intensifying talent war in the industry.
Gross has joined Meta Platforms to lead its AI products division, sources told Reuters.
The development comes as tech giants such as Meta Platforms aggressively chase high-profile acquisitions and offer multi-million-dollar pay packages to attract top talent in the race to lead the next wave of artificial intelligence.
Meta had also attempted to recruit Ilya Sutskever and acquire SSI, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
"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," Sutskever said in a post on X. SSI raised $1 billion in cash last year to build advanced AI systems designed to safely exceed human intelligence.
Gross did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has launched a new division, Meta Superintelligence Labs, to unify the company's AI efforts, following setbacks with its Llama 4 model and key staff departures.
The unit will be led by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and ex-GitHub chief Nat Friedman, after Meta invested $14.3 billion in Scale and ramped up efforts to recruit top AI talent.
Gross and Friedman are known to be close, having co-founded the venture capital firm NFDG — named after their initials. The firm has backed high-profile startups including Safe Superintelligence, Perplexity and Figma.
Apple acquired Gross's startup, Cue, in 2013 for its predictive search and AI technology, after which Gross joined the iPhone maker as a director, overseeing machine learning and artificial intelligence.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru and Krystal Hu in New York; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
3 hours ago
- The Star
Peru ramps up fight against illegal mining, kicks most informal miners off permit scheme
LIMA (Reuters) -Peru's government has excluded 50,500 informal miners from a temporary program that would allow them to continue operations, the minister of energy and mines said on Friday. Only 30,500 small-scale miners will remain in the program, called REINFO, to seek formalization and the government will reinforce its efforts against illegal miners, minister Jorge Montero told a local radio station. (Reporting by Marco Aquino; Editing by ALexander Villegas)
The Sun
4 hours ago
- The Sun
Germany proposes new law to boost geothermal energy expansion
BERLIN: Germany's economy ministry presented a draft law on Friday that would accelerate the expansion of geothermal energy projects, as Berlin aims to phase out the use of fossil fuels in heating systems by 2045. Germany possesses some of Europe's largest geothermal reserves, which could cover more than a quarter of its annual heating demand, a study by Fraunhofer Institute showed in 2023. But development has long been stalled by local resistance and regulatory red tape. The new bill offers simplified approval procedures for geothermal facilities, heat pumps, heat storage, and heating pipelines. It would legally designate these projects as being of 'overriding public interest', similar to the status given to wind and solar energy, and push for accelerated permitting through changes in mining, water, and environmental laws. It would also give government mining authorities fixed deadlines for project approval procedures and ease restrictions on geothermal exploration. Under the bill, mining authorities would be able to waive a requirement for an operational plan for larger heat generation projects under certain conditions and would be required to respond within set deadlines when notified of planned drilling activities. It also gives them the power to require geothermal companies to provide financial security against potential mining damages related to their projects. The renewed interest in geothermal energy in Germany follows an energy price spike resulting from Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine that prompted major municipal utilities — as well as German and international fossil fuel firms — to explore new investment opportunities in the sector. Germany's ambitions to cut greenhouse emissions in the building sector, where heating is the main emissions contributor, has also boosted interest in geothermal energy. The new bill, which the economy ministry hopes will enter into force at the start of next year, must now be approved by Germany's cabinet as well as the lower and upper houses of parliament. - Reuters
The Sun
5 hours ago
- The Sun
Indonesia offers US tariff cuts, $500m wheat deal in trade talks
JAKARTA: Indonesia has offered to cut duties on key imports from the United States to 'near zero' and to buy $500 million worth of U.S. wheat as part of its tariff talks with Washington, its lead negotiator and a wheat industry association said on Friday. Chief economics minister Airlangga Hartarto, who is Indonesia's lead negotiator, also confirmed that state carrier Garuda Indonesia would buy more Boeing planes as part of a $34 billion pact with U.S. partners due to be signed next week. Indonesia, which ran a goods trade surplus of $17.9 billion with the United States in 2024 according to the U.S. Trade Representative, is facing a 32% tariff in U.S. markets and has proposed increasing U.S. imports to facilitate trade talks between the two sides. Airlangga said the Indonesian government has offered to cut tariffs on key American exports, including agricultural products, to near-zero from between 0% and 5% at present. 'It will be near zero (tariffs for U.S. main exports), but it will depend as well on how much the tariffs we get from the U.S.,' Airlangga said. Garuda's CEO has said it is in discussions with U.S. Boeing to buy up to 75 units of aircraft. Garuda group did not respond to requests for comment on Friday. The wheat purchases are also part of next week's pact with U.S. partners. The chairman of Indonesia's wheat flour mills association, Franciscus Welirang, said its 'members will purchase two million tons in total through tenders with a competitive price.' 'The point is all of the members will buy U.S. wheat,' Welirang, who is also a director at Indofood, told Reuters. The U.S. counterparts in the wheat deal include Cargill , Bunge Global SA, Pacificor, Archer-Daniels-Midland, Columbia Grain International, and United Grain Corporation, Welirang added. U.S. exports to Indonesia include soybeans, petroleum gases and aircraft, Indonesian government data showed. When asked whether the trade talks include military deals, Airlangga said they were 'not part of the negotiation'. Susiwijono Moegiarso, a senior official with Indonesia's Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, told Reuters that in return, Jakarta has asked the United States for preferential tariffs on its main exports, including electronics, textiles and footwear. 'We want them to lower the tariffs (for those goods) as low as possible,' he said. Indonesia has also offered the United States opportunities to invest in critical minerals projects, including in the country's abundant resources of copper, nickel and bauxite. - Reuters
