OpenAI Reply To Elon Musk's Accusations About His Original Mission

JAKARTA - OpenAI on Tuesday 5 March responded to Elon Musk's claim that the startup was leaving its original mission by showing emails showing that the billionaire was supporting their plans to create a profit-oriented entity and wanted a merger that would make Tesla its "cash cow".

Musk, co-founder of OpenAI, filed a lawsuit last week, accusing the startup of violating their initial agreement to develop artificial intelligence for humanitarian purposes, not for profit, by partnering with Microsoft.

Other OpenAI founders including Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever said they would move to dismiss all of his claims, in a blog post containing emails sent by Musk.

"We are saddened that this has happened with someone we deeply admire - someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we would fail, start competitors, and then sue us when we start making real progress towards the OpenAI mission without him," they said.

OpenAI agreed with a profit-oriented entity in 2017 after realizing their nonprofit structure would not be able to support the development of general artificial intelligence (AGI), a concept where machines can handle tasks like humans, according to the post.

The Only Way

"When we discussed profit-oriented structures to further advance missions, Elon wants us to join Tesla or he wants full control," OpenAI said. "We cannot agree to profit-oriented terms with Elon because we feel it is against the mission if any individual has absolute control over OpenAI."

"In early February 2018, Elon forwarded to us an email suggesting that OpenAI should be 'close to Tesla as its dairy cow,' by commenting that it was 'exactly... Tesla is the only way to even hope to compete with Google," OpenAI said.

The letters show that Musk agrees that OpenAI's mission does not mean the startup will share all of its technology, including AGI.

He replied with "Yup" in an 2016 email from Sutskever saying that "As we get closer to building an AI, it would make sense to start being more closed," according to emails posted on the blog.

Sutskever has said that OpenAI's mission means everyone should benefit from AI, but that "OK" doesn't share science, even though sharing everything is the right strategy for recruitment at first.

Musk and Tesla did not respond to Reuters' request for comment on the blog, but Musk said on X about Sutskever's email, "OpenAI lives in lies."

Tesla shares fell nearly 4% on Wednesday.

"(Musk) saw something originally at OpenAI that he thought could benefit Tesla. At this point, the lawsuit looks like a wasted distraction for Tesla's main mission," said Craig Irwin, senior research analyst at Roth Capital.

OpenAI also said Musk had pushed startups to be more aggressive in fundraising, with Tesla CEOs looking for a $1 billion funding round for the startup in 2015, after Altman and Brockman initially planned to raise $100 million.

In total, the non-profit has raised less than $45 million from Musk, according to the blog post.

OpenAI's response to the subject matter of the lawsuit filed on Thursday evening at the California High Court in San Francisco.

The lawsuit is the closing of Musk's longstanding opposition to the startup. Since he left the startup, OpenAI has become the face of a generative AI, while Musk has continued to establish his own AI startup, xAI, which was launched in July last year.

Some legal experts say that Musk's contract breach claims, based in part on emails between Musk and Altman, may not remain in court.