- Elon Musk’s new AI researcher Igor Babushkin was arrested in March in a domestic violence case.
- Musk reportedly hired Babuschkin as part of a push to develop a ChatGPT competitor for OpenAI.
- Twitter has hired DeepMind alum Babuschkin as senior director of engineering, Insider previously reported.
Igor Babuschkin, one of Twitter’s engineering recruits who reportedly hopes to help Elon Musk develop a product to combat OpenAI’s ChatGPT, said police in Palo Alto, Calif. He was arrested in March in what he called a “domestic violence case.”
Babushkin was arrested on the morning of March 6 by Palo Alto police who arrived at the scene of the complaint and determined that a misdemeanor domestic violence incident had occurred, Lieutenant Brian Phillip of the Palo Alto Police Department confirmed to an insider.
Babushkin was released from custody the same night after posting $10,000 bail, Phillip confirmed to an insider. The arrest was first reported by technology news site The Information.
The incident involved “minor injuries” but otherwise did not pose a public safety threat, Philippe told an insider. declined to provide details of
Babushkin was arrested at 588 Webster Street, according to a police report published on the Palo Alto Police website last month.
The Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office decided not to formally charge Babushkin after his arrest, Cynthia Sumida, a spokeswoman for the DA’s office, told Insider.
Babushkin did not respond to the insider’s calls and emailed him for comment. Musk did not respond to Insider’s requests for comment sent to Tesla and SpaceX’s email addresses. An email sent to the Twitter press address had an autoresponder of a poop emoji.
Insider Kari Hayes previously reported that Babushkin had left Google’s AI company DeepMind to join Twitter as senior director of engineering. Babuschkin also told The Information in February that Musk was discussing the possibility of creating a chatbot whose “responses are more reliable and trustworthy.”
Musk, who criticized the concept of “Train AI to wake up” According to the WSJ, he is developing his own AI startup and reportedly recently founded X.AI Corp. Musk has also brought in resources, including about 10,000 graphics processing units, to carry out his AI plans, Insider previously reported.
