In the latest development of the ongoing dispute between Elon Musk and OpenAI, the latter has responded to Musk’s lawsuit with a detailed rebuttal, shedding light on the intricacies of their disagreement.
The conflict revolves around the original mission of OpenAI as a nonprofit organization and its alleged deviation from that mission. In a blog post published on Tuesday, OpenAI announced its intention to dismiss “all of Elon’s claims” and provided its own account of the events leading up to the dispute.
The mission of OpenAI, as reiterated by the organization, is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity, encompassing the construction of safe and beneficial AGI and the distribution of its benefits. OpenAI highlighted the significant resources required for achieving this mission, stating that the realization of AGI would necessitate far more resources than initially anticipated.
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Elon Musk, a key figure in the early stages of OpenAI, had suggested a substantial initial funding commitment of $1 billion to the organization. However, it is revealed that OpenAI has raised less than $45 million from Musk himself, with additional funding exceeding $90 million from other donors. This contrast in financial support sets the stage for the underlying tension between Musk and OpenAI.
The divergence in perspectives between Musk and OpenAI became apparent in discussions about transitioning the organization into a for-profit entity to acquire the necessary resources for AGI development.
“We spent a lot of time trying to envision a plausible path to AGI. In early 2017, we came to the realization that building AGI will require vast quantities of compute. We began calculating how much compute an AGI might plausibly require,” OpenAI said in the blog post. “We all understood we were going to need a lot more capital to succeed at our mission—billions of dollars per year, which was far more than any of us, especially Elon, thought we’d be able to raise as the non-profit.”
We and Elon recognized a for-profit entity would be necessary to acquire those resources, the company added.
Musk purportedly advocated for either merging OpenAI with Tesla or assuming full control of the organization. However, disagreements arose regarding the extent of Musk’s control over OpenAI, leading to an impasse in negotiations.
“As we discussed a for-profit structure in order to further the mission, Elon wanted us to merge with Tesla or he wanted full control,” including “majority equity, initial board control, and to be CEO,” according to the post, which is authored by OpenAI co-founders Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, Sam Altman, and Wojciech Zaremba. “We couldn’t agree to terms on a for-profit with Elon because we felt it was against the mission for any individual to have absolute control over OpenAI.”
Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI alleges that the organization has become a “closed-source de facto subsidiary” of Microsoft, prioritizing profit-making over its original nonprofit mission. This accusation forms the basis of Musk’s claim of breach of contract, although no formal agreement between Musk and OpenAI has been publicly disclosed.
In response, OpenAI said the shift to a for-profit was a mutual agreement, which was not honored because they couldn’t reach a consensus on other issues.
“In late 2017, we and Elon decided the next step for the mission was to create a for-profit entity. Elon wanted majority equity, initial board control, and to be CEO. In the middle of these discussions, he withheld funding. Reid Hoffman bridged the gap to cover salaries and operations,” it said.
We couldn’t agree to terms on a for-profit with Elon because we felt it was against the mission for any individual to have absolute control over OpenAI, the company added.
Musk was said to have sent an email to other members of the board in early February 2018, suggesting that OpenAI should “attach to Tesla as its cash cow”, commenting that it was “exactly right… Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google. Even then, the probability of being a counterweight to Google is small. It just isn’t zero”
OpenAI contends that Musk’s departure from the organization was amicable, with Musk expressing support for OpenAI’s pursuit of its mission independently.
“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 in late February 2018, he told our team he was supportive of us finding our own path to raising billions of dollars,” it said.
In an earlier response to the lawsuit, Altman and OpenAI CSO Jason Kwon addressed staff in a memo quoted by the Wall Street Journal, refuting Musk’s claims and suggesting personal motivations behind the legal action. “We believe the claims in this suit may stem from Elon’s regrets about not being involved with the company today,” the memo stated.
Despite Musk’s departure, OpenAI has continued to make strides in advancing its mission, including the development of widely accessible AI tools that benefit various sectors, such as agriculture, healthcare, and language preservation.
“We’re sad that it’s come to this with someone whom we’ve deeply admired—someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we would fail, started a competitor, and then sued us when we started making meaningful progress towards OpenAI’s mission without him,” OpenAI noted in the blog post.