'He Wanted To Be Our CEO', Sam Altman's OpenAI Reveals Big Secrets As Elon Musk Files Lawsuit

Just a handful of days after Elon Musk sued ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, the company has responded, and also revealed that the billionaire once wanted to be OpenAI's CEO.

Elon Musk¡¯s Allegations Against Sam Altman's OpenAI

Elon Musk/bloomberg

Elon Musk had filed a lawsuit against OpenAI last week, saying that they abandoned the startup's original mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity and not for profit. The lawsuit was filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco.

Musk is suing OpenAI for breach of contract, claiming that Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman asked him to create an open-source, nonprofit company, but that the 2015 founded startup is now primarily focused on turning a profit.

According to Musk, the three founders of OpenAI initially decided to focus on artificial general intelligence (AGI), which is the idea that machines could perform human-like tasks in a way that would "benefit humanity," as stated in the lawsuit.

Additionally, Musk claimed that OpenAI would compete with Alphabet's Google, which he felt was creating artificial intelligence (AGI) for financial gain and posed serious risks. Rather, the lawsuit claimed that OpenAI "set the founding agreement aflame" in 2023 when it released GPT-4, its most potent language model, as essentially a Microsoft product.

Musk has requested a court order compelling OpenAI to release its research and technology to the public and prohibiting the startup from using its assets¡ªincluding GPT-4¡ªfor Microsoft or any other person's financial benefit.

Also Read: Teams Vs Google Meet Meme Fest Takes Over X As Sam Altman Joins Microsoft

OpenAI¡¯s Response To Elon Musk¡¯s Allegations

sam altman/getty

Top OpenAI officials have refuted multiple assertions made by Elon Musk in his lawsuit, according to a memo published last week. "It was never going to be a cakewalk," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote. "The attacks will keep coming."

OpenAI Co-Founder Elon Musk Once Wanted To Be Its CEO

sam altman satya nadella openai/getty

OpenAI, the AI startup which was co-founded by Elon Musk, has become the face of generative AI, partly due to billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft. Elon Musk went on launch his own artificial intelligence startup, xAI, in July 2023.

In its statement yesterday amid Elon Musk¡¯s lawsuit, OpenAI has said "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. 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¡±.

indiatimes

Elon soon chose to leave OpenAI, saying that our probability of success was 0, and that he planned to build an AGI competitor within Tesla. When he left in late February 2018, he told our team he was supportive of us finding our own path to raising billions of dollars. In December 2018, Elon sent us an email saying ¡°Even raising several hundred million won¡¯t be enough. This needs billions per year immediately or forget it.¡±

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