Musk backed for-profit move, pushed for merger: Openai
“WE’RE SAD THAT IT’S COME TO THIS WITH 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 IN A BLOG POST
Openai fired back at a lawsuit filed against it by Elon Musk in a blog post Tuesday, using the billionaire’s own emails to show he backed the company’s plans to become a forprofit business and that he insisted it raise “billions” of dollars to be relevant compared with Google.
Musk filed the lawsuit last week against Openai, its chief executive officer Sam Altman (pictured) and president Greg Brockman, alleging the startup had strayed from its mission to build responsible AI and that it had become beholden to Microsoft, its largest investor.
In the post, Openai said that Musk was lashing out after trying and failing to make the company part of Tesla.
“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,” the company said in the post, which was co-authored by several of Openai’s co-founders, including Altman, Brockman and Ilya Sutskever.
The post also reproduced emails Musk had sent to people at the company, demonstrating that the billionaire had endorsed Openai’s fundraising efforts.
“This needs billions per year immediately or forget it,” Musk wrote in one email, according to Openai. Openai, as a non-profit, raised less than $45 million from
Musk and more than $90 million from other donors, according to the blog post. Musk pushed the company to be far more ambitious in its fundraising, the emails show.
At the outset, Altman and Brockman planned to raise $100 million, Openai said, but Musk objected, saying the number should be higher.
Musk alleges in his suit that the startup’s close relationship with Microsoft has undermined its original mission of creating opensource technology free from undue corporate influence.