Business · Wired
Elon Musk’s Last-Ditch Effort to Control OpenAI: Recruit Sam Altman to Tesla
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A few months before Elon Musk left OpenAI’s board of directors in February 2018, he tried to recruit Sam Altman to join a “world-class AI lab” within Tesla.
Key facts
- Musk’s core claim in this lawsuit is that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman effectively stole a nonprofit, using the $38 million Musk invested to create a private company worth more than $800
- A few months before Elon Musk left OpenAI’s board of directors in February 2018, he tried to recruit Sam Altman to join a “world-class AI lab” within Tesla
- In an email to Tesla’s VP of communications, Sarah O'Brien, from November 2017, Zilis shared a draft of an FAQ page about an event Tesla was planning to hold at the NeurIPS AI conference
- OpenAI’s legal team has responded to Musk’s claims by questioning his true motives, arguing that the Tesla CEO has had “sour grapes” ever since he failed to assume control of OpenAI in 2017
Summary
Musk’s core claim in this lawsuit is that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman effectively stole a nonprofit, using the $38 million Musk invested to create a private company worth more than $800 billion today. OpenAI’s legal team has responded to Musk’s claims by questioning his true motives, arguing that the Tesla CEO has had “sour grapes” ever since he failed to assume control of OpenAI in 2017. In a text from February 2018 presented as evidence, Zilis—then an OpenAI adviser, as well as a Neuralink and Tesla executive—asked Altman, “Did you think through a B Corp subsidiary of Tesla?” “There was documentary evidence that, at several points, Mr.