Elon Musk’s Last-Ditch Effort to Control OpenAI: Recruit Sam Altman to Tesla
Key takeaways
- Musk’s core claim in this lawsuit is that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman effectively stole a nonprofit, using the $38 million Musk invested to create a private company worth more than $800 billion today.
- OpenAI’s legal team has responded to Musk’s claims by questioning his true motives, arguing that the Tesla CEO has had “sour grapes” ever since he failed to assume control of OpenAI in 2017.
- In a text from February 2018 presented as evidence, Zilis—then an OpenAI adviser, as well as a Neuralink and Tesla executive—asked Altman, “Did you think through a B Corp subsidiary of Tesla?”
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Mike Windel/Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story. A few months before Elon Musk left Open AI’s board of directors in February 2018, he tried to recruit Sam Altman to join a “world-class AI lab” within Tesla. Musk went as far as offering the Open AI CEO a Tesla board seat, according to emails and testimony presented in federal court on Wednesday during the Musk v. Altman trial. The emails were shown to a jury during the cross examination of Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI adviser and board member who is also the mother of four of Musk’s children.
Musk’s core claim in this lawsuit is that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman effectively stole a nonprofit, using the $38 million Musk invested to create a private company worth more than $800 billion today. On Wednesday, lawyers for Musk showed video depositions of former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati and former OpenAI board member Helen Toner, to raise concerns over Altman’s alleged history of deceit.
OpenAI’s legal team has responded to Musk’s claims by questioning his true motives, arguing that the Tesla CEO has had “sour grapes” ever since he failed to assume control of OpenAI in 2017. He has since started a rival, for-profit AI lab. OpenAI’s lawyers used Zilis’ cross-examination on Wednesday to bring up evidence about Musk’s alleged plans to subvert OpenAI, and tried to suggest Zilis was privy to those plans. As it pertains to this case, one of Zilis’ most important roles at OpenAI was acting as a conduit between Musk and Altman.