OpenAI has said that Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who helped found OpenAI, “wanted the company to merge with Tesla or wanted full control.”
The Artificial Intelligence company in a bombshell blog post Tuesday night, was responding to Elon Musk’s suit, which argues that OpenAI has jeopardized its nonprofit mission by partnering with Microsoft.
OpenAI said in its post that Musk sued the company only when it “started making meaningful progress” toward its mission without him.
In what looks like an attempt to set the record straight, OpenAI posted a series of emails from Musk that appeared to show he supported OpenAI’s pivot toward creating a for-profit entity.
In a 2016 email included in the post, OpenAI’s chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, said the company would have to be “less open” going forward, to which Musk replied, “yup.”
Analysts say the emails appear to contradict comments Elon Musk has made since, including saying in February 2023 that OpenAI became a “maximum profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft,” which was not what he “intended at all.”
But the emails indicate that Musk didn’t mind the company shifting to a for-profit model — and encouraged it as long as he was in charge.
OpenAI’s post said Musk wanted majority equity and board control, and to be CEO which the company said was against its mission for one person to have full control over the company and therefore, couldn’t reach an agreement with Musk.
Yet, in an email sent on January 31, 2018, Musk endorsed someone’s suggestion to make Tesla a “cash cow” for OpenAI and agreed with that person saying other large companies, such as Apple or Amazon, would fail because of “incompatible company DNA.”
In late February 2018, Musk chose to leave the company, and also shared his plans to build an artificial-intelligence competitor within Tesla, which became xAI Corp, OpenAI said.
According to an email from Musk in December 2018 included in the blog, Musk said OpenAI had a 0% chance of being relevant without a major change in execution and resources.
He added that the tech startup needed “billions per year immediately” to stand a chance and has speaking out against OpenAI for a while but recently ramped up his criticism of its mission.
In OpenAI’s announcement, the company said it would seek to have all Musk’s claims dismissed and was “sad that it’s come to this with someone whom we’ve deeply admired.”
