Details Here: OpenAI Reveals Elon Musk’s Desire to Become CEO and Merge Company with Tesla
ChatGPT maker OpenAI on Tuesday denied Elon Musk’s claims that the startup would abandon its original mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity and not for profit.
OpenAI said in a blog post that it plans to reject all of Musk’s claims. Musk filed a lawsuit last week against the startup he co-founded, alleging breach of contract and saying the Microsoft-backed company is now focused on making money.
OpenAI said Musk wanted the company to merge with electric vehicle maker Tesla, and he forwarded an email saying the startup was “joining Tesla as a cash cow.”
OpenAI said the proposal came after Musk and company decided the next step was to set up a for-profit entity in 2017 to generate capital to build artificial general intelligence (AGI).
The billionaire entrepreneur then wanted a majority stake, initial board control and the CEO role of OpenAI, the company said.
But OpenAI and Musk couldn’t agree on for-profit terms, as the startup felt it was against the mission for any one person to fully control the company.
In the lawsuit, Musk said OpenAI’s three founders originally agreed to work on AGI, the concept of machines being able to handle tasks like humans, but in a way that benefits humanity.
Musk also pushed OpenAI to announce its first $1 billion funding commitment in 2015, after CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman initially planned to raise $100 million.
“We’re saddened that this is where we’ve ended up with someone we deeply admired – someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we’d fail, started a competitor, then sued us when we started making significant progress towards OpenAI. a task without him,” OpenAI said.
Musk and Tesla did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on the blog.
Musk’s lawsuit is the culmination of his longstanding opposition to the startup. OpenAI has since become the face of generative artificial intelligence, thanks in part to billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft. Musk founded his own artificial intelligence startup, xAI, which launched last July.
