‘Copycat’ Jeff Bezos becomes latest billionaire to launch AI startup

Project Prometheus has already raised billions and poached employees from Meta and OpenAI

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos speaks during the America Business Forum in Miami, Florida on 6 November, 2025 (Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images)

Jeff Bezos has reportedly become the latest billionaire to create an AI startup.

The Amazon founder will be the co-CEO of Project Prometheus, alongside tech executive Vik Bajaj, the New York Times reported.

The startup has already raised $6.2 billion in funding and hired 100 employees, some of which have been poached from Google DeepMind, Meta and ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

Fellow centi-billionaire Elon Musk, who founded his own AI startup xAI in response to OpenAI, responded to the news on X by calling Bezos a “copycat”, together with a laughing emoji.

Bezos stepped down as Amazon chief executive in 2021, 27 years after founding the online retail giant. He has not since taken a leadership role, though remains involved in both Amazon and Blue Origin.

As the CEO of Project Prometheus, he will focus on building artificial intelligence that supports engineering and manufacturing in aerospace, automobiles and computers, according to the Times.

There are few other details about the startup, though early indications suggest it could work closely with one of Bezos’s other venturers, his private space firm Blue Origin.

Speaking last month at Italian Tech Week 2025, Bezos said that advanced robotics powered by AI will be needed for space exploration in the future.

“In the next kind of couple of decades, I believe there will be millions of people living in space,” he said.

“If you need to do some work on the surface of the moon or anywhere else, we will be able to send robots to do that work, and that will be much more cost-effective than sending humans.”

During the same conference, the tech boss also spoke of an “AI bubble”, however downplayed its significance.

“This is real, the benefits to society from AI are going to be gigantic,” he said. “AI is real, and it is going to change every industry.”

The name of his new startup comes from Greek mythology, with Prometheus best known for stealing fire from the gods to give to humanity.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also used the name for a multi-gigawatt data centre set to come online next year, which is designed to build “superintelligence” AI that surpasses human intelligence.

Based in Ohio, the AI data centre will have the same footprint as the island of Manhattan, with another one planned in Louisiana before the end of the decade.