In a biting response to Elon Musk’s accusations, OpenAI fired back with emails highlighting the billionaire’s prior support for their for-profit venture and his desire for Tesla to be the primary funding source. The startup’s top executives took to their blog, addressing Musk’s claims head-on and announcing their intent to dismiss all allegations made in his recent lawsuit.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, was founded as a non-profit with the goal of developing ethical artificial intelligence to protect society from unscrupulous companies. Musk was one of its co-founders, but left in 2018 and has since started his own competing company, xAI.
Last week, Tesla’s CEO sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, accusing them of abandoning their original mission, violating their founding charter, and breaching contract by creating a for-profit entity and signing a $13 billion deal with Microsoft, according to CNN. However, OpenAI claims that Musk had agreed to similar plans before his departure.
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In its blog post the company stated that both parties recognized the significant need for capital to support OpenAI’s mission, leading to discussions about creating a for-profit entity. It revealed that Musk sought “majority equity, initial board control, and the CEO position.” However, OpenAI expressed concerns about relinquishing complete control to one individual, considering it contradictory to its mission.
Musk then suggested that OpenAI should be sold to Tesla, and said that the automaker could act as the artificial intelligence company’s “cash cow.” After that proposal was turned down, the executive left the tech company, saying that its probability of success was zero.
OpenAI published emails that it claims were sent to the company by Musk, corroborating its claims. It added that its leaders were “sad that it’s come to this,” adding that they admired the Tesla CEO, but lamented that he “sued us when we started making meaningful progress towards OpenAI’s mission without him.”
The company said that it is still focused on its original mission. In the wake of OpenAI’s blog post, experts told Reuters that Musk’s lawsuit “seems like a frivolous distraction for the main mission at Tesla.”
