Tech billionaires Elon Musk and Sam Altman, both fellow co-founders of OpenAI, are warring over the AI startup moving away from its non-profit goals. However, things were not always so cold between the two at one point.
What Happened: A new email revealed as part of Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman has revealed that the Tesla Inc. CEO was once sought after for helping recruit talent for the AI startup.
According to an email exchange, Altman thought Musk would prove to be "really helpful" in helping OpenAI attract and recruit talent, just as it was getting started on its journey in 2015.
In the email, Altman underscores the mission of OpenAI, and lays down the strategy to realize it. He begins by saying that OpenAI should start with a small team, with him, Musk and three others on the company's governance.
Altman also specifically mentions that the "general AI" and other such technologies created by OpenAI would be owned by the non-profit foundation, for the "good of the world." In case there is a conflict in how this technology is to be used, Altman says the five members of the governance structure would decide.
Beyond this, Altman also thought Musk's presence would be helpful in getting OpenAI off the ground, especially in recruiting the "best people" and getting them to work in the right direction.
"Even if you can't really spend time on it but can be publicly supportive, that would still probably be really helpful for recruiting."
Musk's reply was short. "Agree on all."
Why It Matters: After being a long-time critic of OpenAI for its decision to change its focus from "good of the world" to becoming profit-oriented, Musk sued the AI startup as well as Altman in the San Francisco Superior Court on Friday.
Musk alleged that Altman and OpenAI have "betrayed" the founding principles of the company and are instead "refining AGI" to maximize profits for Microsoft Corp. MSFT.
"OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft," Musk alleged in the lawsuit.
Notably, Microsoft is the largest investor in OpenAI – it has pumped in $13 billion in the AI startup so far.
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