Sam Altman Reveals Elon Musk’s Thoughts on OpenAI’s Potential Failure
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk thought the maker of ChatGPT would fail and “he decided to get out of the way.”
In an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, Altman said that “Musk thought OpenAI was going to fail. He wanted total control to turn it around. We wanted to continue in the direction that has now become OpenAI. He also wanted Tesla to be able to build an AGI company.
“At various times he wanted to turn OpenAI into a for-profit company that he could control or merge it with Tesla. We didn’t want to do that and he decided to leave, which is good, he added.
Furthermore, the CEO suggested that the company remains committed to its original purpose of putting powerful technology into people’s hands for free, as a public good.
“We don’t show ads in our free version. We don’t earn it in other ways. We’re just saying it’s part of our mission. We want to put more and more powerful tools in people’s hands for free and get them to use them,” Altman said.
Recently, Musk sued OpenAI and Altman, claiming they breached their original AI contractual agreements.
OpenAI then hit back at Musk’s lawsuit, saying that when the company discussed a for-profit structure to advance its mission, “Musk wanted us to merge with Tesla or he wanted full control.”
