Sam Altman says Elon Musk parted ways from OpenAI because he thought it was going to fail

In the lawsuit, Musk accused OpenAI of unfair business practices and said that the company, along with its president Gregory Brockman, CEO Sam Altman, and partner Microsoft should be barred from benefiting from its AI technology. Musk was one of the founding members of OpenAI in 2015. However, he left the company in 2018 and the reason behind this is still debatable. Sam Altman, during a recent interview, revealed the reason behind Musk’s exit and said that he left OpenAI as he thought that the company was going to fail.

While speaking on Lex Fridman’s podcast, Altman confirmed that Musk left the company as he wanted full control over it and thought that it was going to fail.

Fridman asked Altman about Musk’s departure from OpenAI, saying that the company chose to part ways with the X boss.

Altman interrupted the podcast host here and said that it was Musk who decided to part ways instead. Altman then added that Musk wanted full control of OpenAI and thought that it would “fail.” After this, he left the company.

“He thought OpenAI was going to fail. He wanted total control to turn it around. We wanted to keep going in the direction that now has become OpenAI. He also wanted Tesla to be able to build an AGI effort. At various times, he wanted to make OpenAI into a for-profit company that he could have control of or have it merge with Tesla. We didn’t want to do that, and he decided to leave, which’s fine,” the OpenAI CEO said.

Just a few days back, OpenAI had also released several of Musk’s old emails to the company’s founders. In one of those emails, Musk could be seen suggesting that OpenAI should be merged with Tesla.

Fridman also asked Altman about this blog post. To this, Altman responded that, as per him, the proposal was like “Get acquired by Tesla and have Tesla have full control over it.” The OpenAI CEO added that he was “pretty sure that’s what it was.”

For those unfamiliar with the situation, Musk sued OpenAI earlier this month saying that OpenAI’s focus on maximising profits for Microsoft, instead of benefiting humanity, goes against the company’s original mission.

Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was seen sharing an old Twitter (now called X) exchange, trying to remind Musk of how he stood by him when people were against Tesla in 2019. In an interview, Altman had also said that he texted Musk right after the lawsuit.

Meanwhile OpenAI, apart from releasing the blog post containing Musk’s previous emails, also gave a legal response to the Tesla chief. The company, in a court filing, said that there was no agreement with Musk at all and that it is all “fictional”.

OpenAI co-founder calls Sam Altman and Elon Musk’s fight unnecessary, says it is sad to see this Sam Altman texted Elon Musk after finding out about OpenAI lawsuit, here is what happened next