Elon Musk and Sam Altman: from allies in OpenAi to a rivalry for artificial intelligence

In 2015, Musk and Altman were two of Openai’s main drivers, an organization (in those non -profit) created to develop the AI ​​safely and prevent this technology from being in the hands of a few large companies. With the support of other entrepreneurs and experts, Openai was born with the purpose of ensuring that the AI ​​benefited from humanity. “It is difficult to imagine how much the AI ​​could benefit the human level and it is equally difficult to imagine how much could damage it if it is built or use incorrectly,” he said in a statement in which the OpenAi foundation was announced.

The abandonment of Musk “was very hard”

However, in 2018, Musk suddenly left the company. As he explained later, he did it because he believed that Openai was staying behind other competitors, like Google Deepmind. In addition, he tried to take control of the company, but his proposal was not accepted by the rest of the founders, including Altman. With his departure, the billionaire also withdrew from a commitment to provide additional financing to the startup of AI, according to a person familiar with this matter to ‘The New Yorker’.

“It was very hard,” Altman told New York magazine in relation to this situation. “I had to reorient much of my life and my time to make sure we had sufficient financing.”

Despite the empty that Musk left in terms of financing, in November 2022 Chatgpt took off and reaped millions of users for their ability to do everything, from writing writings to developing programming code. According to the medium ‘Semafor’, Musk was furious for the success of the chatbot, and lashed out at the company, commenting that Chatgpt trained with the Twitter database (now x) without having asked permission and that he would proceed to limit him.

Altman mocks Musk several times

The years passed, and after this rubbing and outlet of Openai, the billionaire decided to found Xai in 2023, his own AI company with the promise of developing more transparent models and without ideological censorship. Its objective was to compete directly with OpenAI and offer an alternative to tools such as Chatgpt.

Musk was also one of the more than 1,000 people who signed an open letter in March 2023 asking for a 6 -month pause in the training of AI advanced systems. “Should we risk losing control of civilization?” The letter argued. However, and as reported by ‘The New Yorker’ in 2023, while Musk pressed publicly to establish a moratorium, the businessman was silently riding his own company. Meanwhile, after Musk bought Twitter, he decided to carry out some prohibitions to links that directed external pages, with a movement in which he decided to self -demonstrate as “absolutist of freedom of expression.” Altman did not miss the opportunity and called him as “absolutism of steroid freedom of expression.”

Nor did he lose the opportunity to comment on the alleged fight between Zuckerberg and Musk, a fight that was never celebrated, but said at the Bloomberg technology summit that he “would see if Zuck and he really fight in a cage,” although he said that In his case, he did not consider that he was going to challenge Musk in a physical fight.

On the other hand, Altman declared The New Yorker in August 2023 that, in more general matters, the CEO of Tesla has an approach of “I do what I want.” He added: «Elon desperately wants the world to save. But only if he can be the one who saves him ».

Musk denounces Openai

The rivalry reached a new level in February 2024, when Musk sue Openai and Sam Altman. In his complaint, he claimed that the company had abandoned its original mission by prioritizing commercial interests and favoring Microsoft. At this time, Altman made the decision that the company ceased to be a non -profit organization, which allowed large investors to attract, among which Microsoft was, who became its main partner.

His lawyers defended that the Chatgpt developer had “transformed into a closed code de facto subsidiary of the world’s largest technology company,” coming to say that Openai is “perfecting a general artificial intelligence (AGI) To maximize Microsoft’s benefits, instead of making it for the benefit of humanity. Given this OpenAi demand, he rejected the accusations and assured that his approach remained aligned with the benefit of humanity.

Musk withdrew that demand, but months later he presented a new one again, claiming that he was “deceived” to co -confound the company of AI. In addition, Musk has just modified this complaint to include Microsoft as an imputed part and their lawyers now accuse the two companies to incur anti -competitive behaviors.

The cake of the cake in this technological fight has happened on Monday, when Musk announced that he wanted to buy OpenAi for 97.4 billion dollars. Given the offer, Altman responded very soon through X: “No, thanks, but we will buy Twitter for 9,740 million dollars if you want.” Musk has not been silent, and has called Altman “scammer”, along with a video in which Altman explains that he has not earned a single dollar with OpenAi. Of course, before it ceases to be a non -profit organization.

Despite the lawsuits and the continuous attacks of the owner of Tesla towards the OpenAi CEO, Altman has repeatedly dedicated beautiful words to Musk. “To say something positive about Elon, I think he really worries the future of the AGI,” he said in an interview at the ‘on with Kara Swisher’ podcast, referring to general artificial intelligence. «It is a moron, or what you want to say about it, has a style that is not what I would want for me. But I think he really cares, and stresses the future of humanity, ”Altman said.

In May 2023 he also commented during a talk at the University College of London that “learning from Elon about what is possible to do and that it is not necessary to accept, that R&D and hard technology are not something that can be ignored, It has been very valuable ».