Sam Altman and Elon Musk They are two characters who have been linked by a peculiar past thanks to a project they shared in common: OpenAI, the company that would give life to ChatGPT.
Few are aware of them, but Musk, owner of SpaceXTesla Motors and even Twitter (now called X), initially also had an important participation as a partner in the company that would release the most important Generative Artificial Intelligence on the planet today.
Unfortunately Elon jumped ship relatively early in the career of OpenAI, And with the passage of time, details have been released where everything would point to the fact that both subjects had not ended their employment and business relationship on the best of terms.
Altman himself has recently spoken about the departure of Elon Musk from his company, making it clear that it was not easy, since the movement would have been abrupt, leaving the future of this project in a fragile balance:
“It was very difficult. I had to refocus a lot of my life and time to make sure we had enough funds.”
So this is an ideal time to review the key moments of the friendship between the two subjects.
Sam Altmann vs. Elon Musk: this is how they went from being friends to rivals
It all started when in 2015 Elon Musk and Sam Altman co-founded OpenAI, along with other Silicon Valley figures such as Peter Thiel, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and Y Combinator co-founder Jessica Livingston.
The group aimed to create a non-profit organization focused on developing artificial intelligence “in a way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole.”
It was more or less around this period that Musk began with his repetitive speech in networks and media that Intelligence was the “greatest existential threat” to humanity.
Everything remained relatively calm until Elon left the project in 2018, although in theory he would continue to provide guidance and donations.
Elon Musk comes out and ends up hating the success of Sam Altman and ChatGPT
Musk is said to have put between USD $50 and USD $100 million of his money as a fund for the operations of the project but in 2018 when he left the company he actually cut everything off as well.
In theory, the official version is that Elon left due to a supposed future conflict of interest with Tesla Motors. But The New Yorker points out that Elon himself would have come into conflict with Altman and the rest of the investors when he tried to self-appoint himself as director of OpenAI.
The board rejected his idea, particularly Altman, and then Musk would have walked off on very bad terms taking his money. Despite the fact that official statements pointed to the other side.
From then on, the tycoon began to criticize the company in a cyclical way. In 2019, Musk shared some thoughts on his decision to leave, saying one of the reasons was that he “didn’t agree” with where OpenAI was going.
In December 2022, days after OpenAI mass-launched ChatGPT, Musk said the company had prior access to the Twitter database, now owned by Musk, to train its AI.
Some reports of traffic light They claim that Elon Musk would have been furious when OpenAI finally got the popularity we’ve all witnessed thanks to ChatGPT.
Altman has been more cordial when referring to his former friend: “To say something positive about Elon, I think he really cares about the future with the AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)”, that was the last thing he said on a recent episode of the podcast On With Kara Swisher.
To this are added other details such as that massive letter where Musk and other figures asked to stop the development of OpenAI AI and the like. Or Altman’s derisive comments about the cage fight against Mark Zuckerberg.
Then it becomes obvious that they are not going through their best moment.