Elon Musk 'Very Worried' About OpenAI Boardroom Battle; Ilya Sutskever 'Wouldn't Take Such Drastic Action Unless.. Absolutely Necessary'

Amid the OpenAI boardroom battle, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is one of the co-founders of the high-profile tech startup, expressed his two cents on the unsavory developments.

What Happened: Amid the weekend developments that saw the ouster of Sam Altman as OpenAI CEO, Musk commented on a post on X by the tech startup’s chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who is rumored to be behind the boardroom coup.

Sutskever said in a post on October 6, “if you value intelligence above all other human qualities, you're gonna have a bad time.” Musk responded to the post on Sunday with “Uh oh” expression. A Tesla influencer and YouTuber commented on Sutskever’s post, “This is the scariest quote I've read in a long time. A long time.”

Replying to it, Musk said, “I am very worried.” “Ilya has a good moral compass and does not seek power,” the billionaire said, adding, “He would not take such drastic action unless he felt it was absolutely necessary.”

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Why It’s Important: Although neither Altman nor any of the board members clarified on the reason for the former’s ouster, the latter said the ex-CEO was not transparent in his communications with the board. Rumors suggest that Altman's efforts to set up an AI chip startup might have been the trigger.

Musk, who invested $50 million in OpenAI in its early days, quit the company in 2018. He has previously expressed worries about the startup becoming profit-driven instead of the original thinking of running it as a non-profit, open-sourced entity. OpenAI in January announced a $10 billion investment from Microsoft Corp. MSFT.

The Tesla CEO is also among the tech entrepreneurs who have raised concerns about a lack of regulation of artificial intelligence technology.

Photo by Frederic Legrand – COMEO on Shutterstock

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