OpenAI responds to Elon Musk and says that billionaire lied in the process

In the first week of March, we were surprised by a process of Elon Musk against a OpenAI, the company that created the ChatGPT. Tesla's founder claims that the company failed to follow its purpose of being a non-profit company by “sell out to Microsoft”. See the second chapter of this story, in an open letter, signed by the founders and members of the Council of OpenAI.

Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI

On March 02, 2024, Elon Musk filed a lawsuit in San Francisco court, California, against OpenAI. At the time, he claims that the company failed to follow its founding purpose by “selling” itself to Microsoft.

The billionaire also said that the company is developing a “super artificial intelligence” called Q* (Q-Star), which can be a great risk to humanity due to its high power. Rumors even suggest that Q* can already break encryption.

By stating the existence of this AGI, Musk also stated that this was the reason why Sam Altman was dismissed as CEO of OpenAI, in November 2023. Altman returned to the position shortly afterwards, but it was necessary to create a new board for the company. We have already covered the subject in a special matter, be sure to check it out.

Initial reactions indicate that the process of Elon Musk will not be very successful due to your evidence not being sufficient and other factors that should not be considered when the process is accepted or not. We have already discussed all the details of the process, including quotes, in a special article. Read more about it below:

Creation of OpenAI, LLC

There has come a time in the history of OpenAI in which the investments initially received would no longer be sufficient in relation to the advances that needed to be achieved. In 2017, Elon Musk and the company's other founders agreed to create a second legal entity to raise funds. See the company's statement on the subject:

At the end of 2017, Elon and we decided that the next step in the mission would be to create a for-profit entity. Elon wanted majority ownership, initial control of the board and to be CEO. In the midst of these discussions, he withheld funding. Reid Hoffman filled the gap to cover salaries and operations.

OpenAI in response to Elon Musk lawsuit

In the process, Musk questions that the company should not have a subsidiary focused solely on making profits. But OpenAI also remembers that, when it was decided that this second company would be created, Musk wanted to have full control, assuming the role of CEO, acquiring majority shares and control of the board of the for-profit division. 

Currently, OpenAI has two divisions: OpenAI Inc. e OpenAI, LLC. The first is focused on the development of new artificial intelligence technologies; the second is a for-profit subsidiary that basically funds research.

A ecosystem owns 49% of the shares of OpenAI, LLC and currently they are some of the companies that use innovations the most in their products — just look at the applications in Windows: We have the Copilot, Office 365 and even the GIVE HER integrated into company applications.

The founders did not agree with the Tesla founder's suggestion and at this point he started talking about a merger between the artificial intelligence company and his electric car manufacturing company, Tesla. See the statement below:

We could not agree to the terms of a for-profit company with Elon because we felt it was against the mission for any individual to have absolute control over OpenAI. He then suggested merging OpenAI with Tesla. In early February 2018, Elon forwarded us an email suggesting that OpenAI should “attach itself to Tesla as its cash cow.

OpenAI in response to Elon Musk lawsuit

Possible merger between OpenAI and Tesla

Despite injecting money in 2017, Elon Musk never thought that investments from outside companies would be enough. By agreeing with an email written by an unidentified person, he emphasizes that the best thing to do was to unify OpenAI with Tesla so that the company would have enough strength to compete against companies like Google. Check out the photo and translation below:

[name censored] is exactly right. We might wish it were different, but in my opinion, in [name censored's], Tesla is the only path that could even compare to Google. Even so, the likelihood of it being a counterweight to Google is small. It's not even zero.

Elon Musk in email exchange with OpenAI founders

Elon Musk appears to have agreed with a text written by a market analyst and sent the email citing that he “agrees with the opinion” to Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, the two founders of OpenAI. As you know, this did not go ahead and the artificial intelligence company continues to operate independently.

He also mentions, on the same day, that the way of working with which the OpenAI I worked wasn't enough. It would be necessary to carry out an investigation into the use of investments for any progress to really be achieved. See the translation of this email below:

It appears that OpenAI is burning through cash and that the funding model cannot reach the scale to seriously compete with Google (a company with a market cap of 800B). If you fail to compete seriously, but continue to do research openly, you may actually be making things worse and helping them “for free”, because any advances are quite easy to copy and incorporate immediately, on a large scale.

Elon Musk in email exchange with OpenAI founders

The company also mentions that, when his wishes were not met, Musk left OpenAI and mentioned that he would build a Tesla AGI. He said it would take “billions of dollars a year” for the idea to really take off. Read the final part:

Elon soon chose to leave OpenAI, saying that our probability of success was 0 and that he planned to build an AGI competitor within Tesla. When he left at the end of February 2018, he told our team that he supported us finding our own way to raise billions of dollars. In December 2018, Elon sent us an email saying “Even raising several hundred million will not be enough. This needs billions a year immediately or forget it.”

OpenAI in response to Elon Musk lawsuit

Closed company code

In addition to accusing the company of not complying with the terms defined in its foundation, Elon Musk also mentions in the process that the OpenAI closed its code as a way to become a private company. However, attachments to OpenAI's open letter prove that the millionaire, when he was still part of the company, agreed to this.

The decision was suggested by an unidentified person, but Elon forwards the email to Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever with a “yup“, agreeing that yes, this should be done. The person who wrote the message was afraid of open source artificial intelligence being used for evil and the best decision was to change that. Check out the image and translation below:

E-mail 1:

If a hard takeoff occurs, and a safe AI is harder to build than an insecure one, we make it easier for someone with no scruples and access to a huge amount of hardware to build an insecure AI, which will face a hard takeoff.

As we get closer to building AI, it will make sense for the code to be less open. Open in OpenAI means that everyone should benefit from the fruits of AI after it's built, but it's completely acceptable not to share the science (although sharing everything is definitely the right strategy in the short and possibly medium term for recruitment purposes).

Elon Musk: Yes.

Next steps in the OpenAI process

As we said in our initial article on the subject, it is unlikely that Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI will actually be accepted, but that depends on the California judges.

Now that there has been a response from the creator of ChatGPT, it may become even more difficult for the billionaire to have any success. The biggest comment is that the company possibly stopped following its purposes only in 2023, when Musk was no longer part of it.

If he wins the case, Musk asks for the money initially invested in OpenAI to be returned. The company mentions that the billionaire injected US$45 million in his first round of investments. Another US$90 million from other donors was raised separately and Musk highlighted that any other necessary investment would be covered by it.

A OpenAI She says she is disappointed that it was necessary for all the conversations and stories about the foundation to be made public, but she hopes that everything will be resolved. Check out:

We are saddened that it has to come to this point with someone we deeply admire - someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we would fail, started a competitor, and then sued us when we began to make significant progress toward the company's mission. OpenAI without it. We are focused on advancing our mission and have a long way to go. As we continue to make our tools better and better, we are excited to deploy these systems to empower every individual.

Do you believe that the case will actually be accepted in court? Tell us Comment!

See also other features

Watch our video about possible existence of the AGI Q-Star

With information: The Verge (1 e 2)l OpenAI l Wes Roth

reviewed by Glaucon Vital in 6 / 3 / 24.