Sam Altman · BBC Technology
Musk and Altman were reportedly released by a Silicon Valley investor in 2012
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Altman, still in his twenties, was 14 years younger than Musk and would go on to pitch the idea of OpenAI to the Tesla and SpaceX boss.
Key facts
- The company had been valued at $157bn in a recent funding round. (It's now approaching a rumoured public listing, or IPO, with a value of about $850bn.)
- He said he had donated around $40m (£30m) to OpenAI after being manipulated by the defendants who betrayed him by moving to turn it into a mostly for-profit entity
- In 2022, OpenAI kicked off the consumer AI revolution with the release of ChatGPT which immediately surged in popularity, reaching 100 million monthly active users within months
- Last year, Musk and a consortium of investors offered to purchase OpenAI's assets for $97.4bn
Summary
The bitter feud between Elon Musk and OpenAI boss Sam Altman has raged for years, but has mostly played out online in the form of accusations, counter-accusations and jibes. Musk was at it again on Monday, calling Altman "Scam Altman" in a post on X. But starting on Tuesday, the beef between the two tech billionaires will shift to a much higher-profile forum: a federal courtroom in California, where their row will be the focus of a month-long trial. Being considered is Musk's claim that Altman - with whom he founded OpenAI - has swindled him out of millions of dollars and reneged on the ChatGPT-maker's original non-profit mission. Musk and Altman themselves will be among those to testify in a case in which the future of AI could be at stake.