Recently, OpenAI found itself in the headlines when Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against the company, and its co-founders accusing them of moving away from its original mission.
Last week, in the lawsuit, Musk said that OpenAI, which started with the goal of making AI technology openly available for the public good, has become too focused on making money. He pointed particularly to the company’s close relationship with Microsoft, suggesting that this partnership has led the company to prioritize profits over its founding principles.
OpenAI, however, didn’t stay silent over this. The company responded to this by sharing previous private emails between Musk and other known team members.
They highlighted a disagreement with Musk over the direction of the company. Specifically, they revealed that Musk had ambitious plans for OpenAI, including a proposal to merge it with his car company, Tesla, or to take full control himself.
In the recent blog post, authored by OpenAI co-founders Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, Sam Altman, and Wojciech Zaremba, OpenAI expressed in their response, “As we discussed a for-profit structure in order to further the mission, Elon wanted us to merge with Tesla or he wanted full control,” showing that there were significant differences in vision between Musk and the rest of OpenAI’s team.
The company said in that lawsuit: “In late 2017, we and Elon decided the next step for the mission was to create a for-profit entity. Elon wanted majority equity, initial board control, and to be CEO. In the middle of these discussions, he withheld funding. Reid Hoffman bridged the gap to cover salaries and operations.“.
OpenAI also refuted Musk’s claims of seeking absolute control, stating their refusal was based on the belief that no single individual should have power over the potential of artificial general intelligence. They wrote: “He then suggested instead merging OpenAI into Tesla. In early February 2018, Elon forwarded us an email suggesting that OpenAI should “attach to Tesla as its cash cow”, commenting that it was “exactly right… Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google. Even then, the probability of being a counterweight to Google is small. It just isn’t zero”.
The company also said that despite Musk’s initial commitment to a “$1B funding commitment,” the non-profit has raised less than $45M from Musk and over $90M from other donors. They also said that evolving from a non-profit to a for-profit organization was crucial for securing enough funding to continue their work in AI. According to OpenAI, this shift wasn’t about abandoning their mission but ensuring they had the resources to achieve it.
Moreover, the company defended its decision to be less open with some of its technology, suggesting that Musk himself agreed with this approach at one point. In their blog post, they revealed a conversation where Ilya Sutskever, one of OpenAI’s co-founders, explains to Musk the rationale behind becoming “less open” as they approach significant AI milestones. Musk’s response to this email “Yup” indicates his agreement on this approach.
In one of the emails shared by OpenAI, Elon said “My probability assessment of OpenAI being relevant to DeepMind/Google without a dramatic change in execution and resources is 0%. Not 1%. I wish it were otherwise. Even raising several hundred million won’t be enough. This needs billions per year immediately or forget it.”
OpenAI has firmly denied all the accusations brought forward by Elon Musk, providing a detailed blog post with Musk’s previous emails as proof. There isn’t any response from Elon Musk or his legal team yet. As this story develops, let’s see where it goes.