‘He wanted board control’ — OpenAI founders react to Elon Musk’s lawsuit

Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, founders of OpenAI, have responded to the lawsuit filed by Elon Musk accusing them of breaching their establishment contract.

On March 1, 2024, Musk, the Tesla founder, sued ChatGPT maker, OpenAI and Altman, its chief executive officer (CEO), for allegedly violating the artificial intelligence company’s original mission statement by turning the company into a profit-making venture after an agreement to make it a non-profit enterprise.

In their response to the lawsuit on Tuesday, Altman said Musk was part of the decision to make OpenAI a for-profit entity in 2017.

“When starting OpenAI in late 2015, Greg and Sam had initially planned to raise $100M. Elon said in an email: “We need to go with a much bigger number than $100M to avoid sounding hopeless… I think we should say that we are starting with a $1B funding commitment… I will cover whatever anyone else doesn’t provide,” Altman said.

“As we discussed a for-profit structure in order to further the mission, Elon wanted us to merge with Tesla or he wanted full control. Elon left OpenAI, saying there needed to be a relevant competitor to Google/DeepMind and that he was going to do it himself. He said he’d be supportive of us finding our own path.

“In late 2017, we and Elon decided the next step for the mission was to create a for-profit entity. Elon wanted majority equity, initial board control, and to be CEO. In the middle of these discussions, he withheld funding. Reid Hoffman bridged the gap to cover salaries and operations.

“We couldn’t agree to terms on a for-profit with Elon because we felt it was against the mission for any individual to have absolute control over OpenAI. He then suggested merging OpenAI into Tesla. In early February 2018, Elon forwarded us an email suggesting that OpenAI should ‘attach to Tesla as its cash cow’, commenting that it was ‘exactly right… Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google. Even then, the probability of being a counterweight to Google is small. It just isn’t zero’.

“Elon soon chose to leave OpenAI, saying that our probability of success was 0, and that he planned to build an AGI competitor within Tesla.”

When Musk left in late February 2018, he was said to have told the team he was supportive of them finding their path to raising billions of dollars. 

“Elon sent us an email saying ‘Even raising several hundred million won’t be enough. This needs billions per year immediately or forget it’,” Altman said.

The founders, however, said they are 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”. 

They added that OpenAI is focused on advancing the mission and has a long way to go.