OpenAI · TechCrunch AI
How Elon Musk exited OpenAI, according to Greg Brockman
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In late August 2017, key figures at OpenAI (then a small nonprofit research lab) gathered to discuss how they would create a for-profit to commercialize its technology and raise the funds needed to realize AGI.
Key facts
- In 2019, OpenAI would create a for-profit and use it to raise $1 billion from Microsoft
- Elon Musk was demanding full control of the company and had given each of his co-founders a Tesla Model 3
- The team have yet to hear from Sam Altman, but OpenAI president Greg Brockman testified for two days, often referencing a personal journal that offers a rare insight into what it’s like to be a 30-year-old
- The OpenAI nonprofit has over $150 billion of OpenAI equity value
Summary
Elon Musk was demanding full control of the company and had given each of his co-founders a Tesla Model 3. The conversation didn’t follow that mood: When Musk was told the others would not accede to his demand for control of the company, Brockman said he got angry and upset. Then, in Brockman’s telling, Musk said, “I decline.” The SpaceX and Tesla founder “stood up and stormed around the table…the reporter thought he was going to hit me. As today’s legal battle over the future of OpenAI proceeds, scrutiny has settled on a key period in 2017 when the organization’s original co-founders disagreed about who would control its future, eventually bringing them Musk’s lawsuit against his co-founders.