In a surprising revelation, it has come to light that Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, made aggressive attempts to gain control of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, during a tumultuous period for Tesla in 2018.
According to emails and a recent blog post from OpenAI, Musk pushed the company’s founders, Greg Brockman and Sam Altman, to raise $1 billion and suggested merging OpenAI with Tesla, with himself as CEO. This occurred as Tesla struggled to ramp up production of the critical Model 3, facing delays, cost overruns, and a cash crunch.
Musk’s overtures to OpenAI painted a dire picture, claiming the AI startup needed “billions per year immediately” and that Tesla was “the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google.” However, this coincided with Tesla’s own desperate need for capital amidst “production hell” and subsequent “delivery hell” with the Model 3.
The revelations shed new light on Musk’s recent decision to sue OpenAI for allegedly breaching its nonprofit status. OpenAI’s blog post suggests Musk had no issue with the company becoming for-profit in 2017, as long as he could control it.
As Tesla faced layoffs, logistics nightmares, and mounting losses in 2018, Musk continued to position himself as OpenAI’s potential savior. In a December 2018 email, he wrote to Altman, “My probability assessment of OpenAI being relevant to DeepMind/Google without a dramatic change in execution and resources is 0%. Not 1%. I wish it were otherwise.”
Despite Musk’s claims, OpenAI has since exploded in prominence with the launch of ChatGPT, while Tesla now faces slowing demand, a price war, and thinning margins. The revelations paint a picture of Musk’s relentless desire for control and belief in his ability to fix anything, even as his own companies face challenges.
As the battle between Musk and OpenAI unfolds, it remains to be seen how the entrepreneur’s past actions and current lawsuit will impact the future of both companies in the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence.
