OpenAI, the creator of the popular program ChatGPT, has fired back at Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Musk recently sued the company for allegedly betraying its goal to benefit humanity. In a blog post, OpenAI executives claimed that Musk had supported their decision to become a for-profit company and vowed to have his lawsuit dismissed.
The dispute centers around OpenAI’s shift from a non-profit organization focused on developing AI for the public good to a capped-profit company pursuing commercial interests. Musk, who was an early investor and co-chair of OpenAI’s board, claims that this change violated an agreement he had with the company.
However, OpenAI has released emails showing that Musk was aware of the need for significant funding to compete with tech giants like Google. In one email, Musk stated, “This needs billions per year immediately or forget it.”
Musk also discussed potential solutions, like merging OpenAI with Tesla. Despire the discussions, Musk and OpenAI could not agree on terms. Musk eventually left to start his own AI company, xAI, while remaining supportive of OpenAI’s fundraising efforts, according to the blog post.
In response to the blog post, Musk took to his social media platform Twitter, challenging OpenAI to change its name to “ClosedAI” in exchange for dropping the lawsuit.
“Change your name… To ClosedAI and I will drop the lawsuit,” he said.
OpenAI also addressed Musk’s claim that the company broke its promise to keep its code open to the public. They shared an email from their chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, arguing that open-sourcing everything could allow “someone unscrupulous” to build “unsafe AI.” Musk had replied, “Yup.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.