Bezos AI company poaches xAI co-founder from OpenAI

ME News report, April 7 (UTC+8), the UK’s Financial Times reported that Project Prometheus, an AI company under Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has hired Kyle Kosic, co-founder of xAI. Kosic previously co-founded xAI with Musk and led the infrastructure buildout for the supercomputer Colossus; in 2024, he returned to his former employer OpenAI and has now joined Prometheus to continue overseeing AI infrastructure.

Prometheus has recruited hundreds of engineers and AI researchers at its headquarters in San Francisco, as well as in its offices in London and Zurich, and according to sources, it has already “assembled the largest data corpus in the engineering field.” The company plans to acquire equity stakes in companies in industries such as engineering, aerospace, and construction to obtain data and dispatch engineers to improve operations. Bezos and co-CEO, Verily (the former Google Life Sciences) co-founder Vikram Bajaj are raising several tens of billions of dollars for a “perpetual capital tool,” which sources say is akin to a “Berkshire Hathaway-style holding company.” The company is currently in talks with sovereign wealth funds from Singapore and Gulf states for investment.

Kosic is one of the earlier departures among Musk’s xAI’s 11 co-founders. Now all 11 have left; the last two, Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen, departed at the end of March. Some people have expressed dissatisfaction with Musk’s management style. (Source: Financial Times)