Ilya Sutskever

From Russia to Hinton's lab in Toronto

Sutskever was born in Russia and raised in Israel, according to the University of Toronto. He described his reaction to seeing a computer as a child in two words: "I was utterly enchanted". He took a BSc in mathematics and an MSc and PhD in computer science at Toronto, finishing the PhD in 2013.3411

His supervisor's name is on his own homepage: he was a student in Toronto's machine-learning group, working with Geoffrey Hinton. Of the programme he said, "The program in machine learning has exceeded my expectations." He then did a postdoc in Andrew Ng's group at Stanford, co-founded DNNresearch, and spent three years as a research scientist on the Google Brain team.45

Inventing AlexNet, then building GPT at OpenAI

The Computer History Museum credits him as co-inventor of AlexNet and of sequence-to-sequence learning. OpenAlex lists his 2014 paper Sequence to Sequence Learning with Neural Networks. It records 96 works by him, 248,688 citations and an h-index of 60.3921

After Google Brain he joined OpenAI as co-founder and chief scientist. The museum describes him as one of the architects behind the GPT models, at a lab that aims to build artificial general intelligence that benefits all of humanity. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and Toronto gave him an honorary Doctor of Science in June 2025.31120

The board that fired Altman

On 17 November 2023 OpenAI announced that its board had removed Altman. Sutskever, then chief scientist, was one of the board members. On 20 November he said he deeply regretted his participation in the board's actions, as Axios reported. On 29 November OpenAI said he would no longer serve on the board and that it hoped to keep working with him.6710

He left the company in May 2024. Jakub Pachocki replaced him as chief scientist. The Associated Press described him as having been involved in a failed effort to push out Altman.28

Safe Superintelligence and its $1 billion

In June 2024 he co-founded Safe Superintelligence with Daniel Gross and Daniel Levy. In September 2024 the company said it had raised $1 billion from NFDG, a16z, Sequoia, DST Global and SV Angel. In July 2025 he became formally CEO, and the update closed: "Together we will keep building safe superintelligence."12

Globes reported, citing The Information and CNBC, that SSI declined an acquisition offer from Meta in 2025 and that Meta then hired Gross. Globes noted that SSI had yet to launch a product. In July 2026 SSI announced an NVIDIA partnership that it said would let it scale its compute by 10x.122

A witness in Musk v. Altman

Elon Musk sued OpenAI and Altman; Sutskever was a non-party witness, not a defendant. On 1 October 2025 he gave nearly ten hours of videotaped testimony. Later that month a magistrate judge ordered him to produce the Brockman memo, which the OpenAI board reviewed before firing Altman, and to sit for a second deposition. The district judge denied his request to overturn that order on 31 October.121314

He also said he relied on Mira Murati's information and did not verify it himself. He testified that Anthropic proposed a merger with OpenAI after Altman's removal, and that he opposed it.14

At the May 2026 trial, Arise News reported, he said he spent about a year gathering evidence that he believed showed a pattern of lying by Altman. The jury found Musk's claims time-barred and the judge adopted its findings. Musk said on X that he would appeal because the jury never ruled on the merits.151617

Sutskever, year by year

1. 2013

   Earned a PhD in computer science at the University of Toronto4

2. 2014

   Published Sequence to Sequence Learning with Neural Networks39

3. Nov 2023

   Was on the OpenAI board when it removed Altman; days later said he regretted taking part, and by the end of the month was off the board6710

4. May 2024

   Left OpenAI; Jakub Pachocki replaced him as chief scientist8

5. Jun 2024

   Co-founded Safe Superintelligence with Daniel Gross and Daniel Levy2

6. Sep 2024

   SSI announced $1 billion raised from NFDG, a16z, Sequoia, DST Global and SV Angel1

7. Jun 2025

   Received an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Toronto11

8. Jul 2025

   Became formally CEO of SSI, with Daniel Levy as President1

9. Oct 2025

   Ordered by a US court to produce the Brockman memo; gave about ten hours of deposition on 1 October in Musk v. Altman121314

10. May 2026

    Testified at the Musk v. OpenAI trial; the jury later found Musk's claims time-barred151617

11. Jul 2026

    SSI announced an NVIDIA partnership to scale its compute by 10x1

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