Jeff Bezos’ Return to C-Suite Comes With a $6.2 Bn AI Start-Up, Elon Musk Calls Him 'Copy Cat'

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is all set to get his hands back on leadership for the first time in four years. The billionaire is partly backing a new AI start-up called ‘Project Prometheus’, which has raised $6.2 billion in funding, according to The New York Times report. Bezos will serve as a co-chief executive of the new AI venture.

He will share the top job with Vik Bajaj, a prominent Silicon Valley researcher who previously worked with Google cofounder Sergey Brin at the tech giant’s experimental X lab and cofounded life sciences research unit ‘Verily’. In addition, he has also cofounded Foresite Labs, an AI-focused affiliate of investment firm ‘Foresite Capital’.

The report, quoting sources, said that the initiative aims to deploy AI in engineering and manufacturing across industries such as computing, aerospace, and automotive.

Tech giant Elon Musk took a swipe at Bezos on Monday after he announced the leadership role. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk wrote, "Haha no way, Copycat".

The role marks Bezos’ first official executive role since he exited the top job at Amazon in July 2021. Since then, the billionaire has focused largely on his space venture ‘Blue Origin’, while also remaining in the spotlight for his personal life, including his high-profile wedding in Venice.

Bezos has also more closely aligned himself with the Trump administration, attending the president’s inaugural ceremony in January and pushing for a more business-friendly shift on the Washington Post’s opinion pages, the news outlet he owns.

Project Prometheus enters an increasingly competitive AI landscape, where major players like Google, Meta, and Microsoft, along with pioneering firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic, already dominate the market. The venture has reportedly built a team of nearly 100 people so far, including researchers hired from leading AI labs, the report said.

The initiative reflects a wider push to deploy AI in real-world, physical applications, frequently through robotics.

Instead of relying on generative models like those powering ChatGPT, the project focuses on AI systems that learn through hands-on experimentation rather than text-based data. The aim is to speed up breakthroughs across fields such as physics, chemistry and engineering.

It is pertinent to note that Bezos has earlier also invested in ‘Physical Intelligence’, a start-up that is applying artificial intelligence to robots. However, the $6.2 billion funding in Project Prometheus potentially gives it an advantage in the global AI race.