OpenAI comments on Elon Musk's lawsuit against the company. Strong statement with the e‑mails revealed.
Last week, information appeared in the media that Elon Musk, the owner of brands such as X and Tesla, sued the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, which he helped build. Now, the defendants are responding to Musk's allegations by publishing the contents of his old emails.
4:08 AM EST, March 6, 2024
On Thursday, February 29, Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The billionaire claims that Altman breached the terms of the contract by prioritizing commercial and financial profits over the company's initial goals of working for the common good of humanity.
Musk made significant contributions as one of the nine investors who each committed a billion dollars to establishing OpenAI in 2015, playing a crucial role in the company's early days. He stepped down from the OpenAI board in 2018, and by the following year, Sam Altman's firm had begun a close partnership with Microsoft, which invested $13 billion into the venture.
"OpenAI has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company, Microsoft," says the lawsuit, quoted by the New York Times.
In this statement, OpenAI claims that Musk was aware several years ago that the company had to go beyond non-profit activities to meet its goals.
When starting OpenAI in late 2015, Greg and Sam had initially planned to raise $100M. Elon said in an email: "We need to go with a much bigger number than $100M to avoid sounding hopeless… I think we should say that we are starting with a $1B funding commitment… I will cover whatever anyone else doesn't provide.", wrote the OpenAI.
"In early 2017, we came to the realization that building AGI will require vast quantities of compute. We began calculating how much compute an AGI might plausibly require. We all understood we were going to need a lot more capital to succeed at our mission—billions of dollars per year, which was far more than any of us, especially Elon, thought we’d be able to raise as the non-profit.
"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. We couldn’t agree to terms on a for-profit with Elon because we felt it was against the mission for any individual to have absolute control over OpenAI," added the company on its website.
Sources: New York Times, OpenAI.com
