Jeff Bezos Returns to Operational Role with AI Startup Project Prometheus

On November 17, 2025, The New York Times reported that Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and former CEO, is taking on his first formal executive position since stepping down from Amazon in 2021 by serving as co-CEO of a new artificial intelligence startup named Project Prometheus. The report, citing anonymous sources familiar with the company, states that Project Prometheus has secured approximately $6.2 billion in funding—partly contributed by Bezos himself—positioning it as one of the most heavily financed early-stage AI ventures globally.

Key details:

Leadership: Bezos shares the co-CEO and co-founder title with Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist with prior roles at Google's X moonshot lab, Verily (Alphabet's life sciences unit), and other AI/health-tech ventures.
Team: The company has reportedly hired around 100 employees, including AI researchers from OpenAI, Meta, and Google DeepMind.
Mission and Focus: Project Prometheus is described on its minimal LinkedIn page as developing "AI for the physical economy." Sources indicate it is building AI models to assist in engineering, manufacturing, and design processes, with applications in sectors such as aerospace, automobiles, computing, and potentially robotics or scientific discovery. The approach involves training models on physical world data (e.g., simulations and real-world interactions) rather than primarily digital/text-based systems like large language models.
Status: The startup remains in stealth mode with limited public information; no official website, headquarters location, or full investor list has been disclosed. Bezos has not publicly commented on the reports.

The company aims to advance "physical AI"—technology that bridges AI with real-world physics, materials, and industrial processes—to accelerate innovation in hardware-heavy industries. This aligns with emerging trends in AI for robotics, simulation-driven design, and manufacturing efficiency, distinct from consumer-focused generative AI.

All details remain unconfirmed by Bezos or the company, and coverage stems primarily from the NYT report, with secondary sources echoing the same information.

Vik Bajaj Professional Background

Vikram "Vik" Bajaj is a physicist, chemist, and entrepreneur with expertise at the intersection of physical sciences, biotechnology, data science, and artificial intelligence. He currently serves as co-founder and co-CEO of Project Prometheus, a stealth-mode AI startup focused on "AI for the physical economy," alongside Jeff Bezos.

Education

PhD in Physical Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Combined Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania.
Held academic appointments, including as an adjunct associate professor at Stanford University, and prior roles at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Berkeley, and Stanford School of Medicine.

Career Highlights

Early Research: Developed nanotechnology probes for disease detection, spectroscopic imaging tools, microfabricated systems for point-of-care testing, enhanced MRI techniques, and clinical bioinformatics methods. Received awards such as the Abragam Prize (2013) for magnetic resonance advancements and recognition for optically-detected oil well logging technology.
Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences, Alphabet): Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer (2013–2016); chaired its Scientific Advisory Board; worked on moonshot projects bridging biology, computation, and engineering.
GRAIL: Chief Scientific Officer; led efforts in early cancer detection through genomics and diagnostics (company later acquired by Illumina).
Foresite Capital and Foresite Labs: Managing Director since 2017; co-founder and CEO of Foresite Labs (2018–recently), an incubator for AI-driven healthcare, precision medicine, and biotech startups.
Other Ventures: Co-founder of Xaira Therapeutics (2023), an AI-powered drug discovery company, where he serves as director and interim president.
Project Prometheus: Joined as co-founder and co-CEO in November 2025; brings scientific leadership to develop AI models trained on physical world data for applications in engineering, manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, and scientific discovery.

Bajaj's work emphasizes large-scale computation and AI applied to real-world scientific and engineering challenges, transitioning from academia to high-impact industry roles in health-tech and now physical AI. Details are primarily sourced from professional profiles and reports as of November 18, 2025; no official biography from Project Prometheus has been released.

References

The following are the most authoritative sources reporting on the November 17, 2025, announcement of Project Prometheus, a stealth-mode AI company co-led by Jeff Bezos and Vik Bajaj with $6.2 billion in funding:

The New York Times (Original reporting source, citing anonymous insiders):
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/technology/bezos-project-prometheus.html
Reuters (Wire service coverage based on the NYT report):
https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/jeff-bezos-co-lead-ai-startup-first-operational-role-since-amazon-nyt-reports-2025-11-17/
Bloomberg (Detailed analysis of the startup's focus and implications):
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-17/jeff-bezos-brings-signature-management-style-to-6-billion-ai-startup