Yahoo Autos Elon Musk and Sam Altman founded OpenAI together, but are now at odds in a lawsuit. Here's the history of their working relationship and feud.
Elon Musk helped found OpenAI, but he has frequently criticized it in recent years and is now suing.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has called Musk a "jerk" but said the Tesla CEO "really does care" about AI risks.
Here's a history of Musk and Altman's working relationship.
Elon Musk and Sam Altman lead rival AI firms and now take public jabs at each other — but it wasn't always like this.
Years ago, the two cofounded OpenAI, which Altman now leads. Musk departed OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, in 2018 and recently announced his own AI venture, xAI, and AI chatbot, Grok.
Now, Musk is suing Altman and OpenAI, saying they've betrayed the firm's founding principles, namely of being open-source and "a nonprofit developing AGI for the benefit of humanity."
Here's a look at Musk and Altman's complicated relationship over the years:
Musk and Altman cofounded OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, in 2015, alongside other Silicon Valley figures, including Peter Thiel, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, and Y Combinator cofounder Jessica Livingston.
The group aimed to create a nonprofit focused on developing artificial intelligence "in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole," according to a statement on OpenAI's website from December 11, 2015.
Source: Business Insider
At the time, Musk said that AI was the "biggest existential threat" to humanity.
"It's hard to fathom how much human-level AI could benefit society, and it's equally hard to imagine how much it could damage society if built or used incorrectly," a statement announcing the founding of OpenAI reads.
Musk stepped down from OpenAI's board of directors in 2018.
"As Tesla continues to become more focused on AI, this will eliminate a potential future conflict for Elon," OpenAI said in a blog post at the time, adding that Musk would continue to provide guidance and donations.
With his departure, Musk also backed out of a commitment to provide additional funding to OpenAI, a person involved in the matter told The New Yorker.
"It was very tough," Altman told the magazine of the situation. "I had to reorient a lot of my life and time to make sure we had enough funding."
Source: Business Insider, The New Yorker, Business Insider
In 2023, it was reported that Sam Altman and other OpenAI cofounders had rejected Musk's proposal to run the company in 2018.
Semafor reported that Musk wanted to run the company on his own in an attempt to beat Google. But when his offer to run the company was rejected, he pulled his funding and left OpenAI's board, the news outlet reported.
Source: Semafor, Business Insider
In 2019, Musk shared some insight on his decision to leave, saying one of the reasons was that he "didn't agree" with where OpenAI was headed.
"I had to focus on solving a painfully large number of engineering & manufacturing problems at Tesla (especially) & SpaceX," he tweeted. "Also, Tesla was competing for some of same people as OpenAI & I didn't agree with some of what OpenAI team wanted to do. Add that all up & it was just better to part ways on good terms."
Source: Business Insider
Musk has taken shots at OpenAI on several occasions since leaving.
Two years after his departure, Musk said, "OpenAI should be more open" in response to an MIT Technology Review article reporting that there was a culture of secrecy there, despite OpenAI frequently proclaiming a commitment to transparency.
Musk also added that his "confidence in Dario for safety is not high," referring to Dario Amodei, who led OpenAI's strategy at the time.
Source: Business Insider
In December 2022, days after OpenAI released ChatGPT, Musk said the company had prior access to the database of Twitter — now owned by Musk — to train the AI chatbot and that he was putting that on hold.
"Need to understand more about governance structure & revenue plans going forward. OpenAI was started as open-source & non-profit. Neither are still true," he said.
Source: Twitter
Musk was reportedly furious about ChatGPT's success, Semafor reported in 2023.
In November, the chatbot took off and garnered millions of users for its ability to do everything from write essays to craft basic code.
Source: Semafor, Business Insider
In February 2023, Musk doubled down, saying OpenAI as it exists today is "not what I intended at all."
"OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it "Open" AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft. Not what I intended at all," he said in a tweet.
