Elon Musk is an ‘idiot’ but was a ‘talent magnet’ for OpenAI early on, admits Sam Altman – who now faces direct competition from him

Elon Musk and Sam Altman shared a stage in October 2015, before things froze. Michael Kovach/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

While Elon Musk recently launched an AI startup to compete with OpenAI, not long ago he co-founded the now-famous company — maker of ChatGPT and GPT-4 chatbots — and assisted it in important ways.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described Musk’s early role while appearing on In good company podcast this week.

“Elon was definitely a talent and attention grabber, and he also had some real superpowers that were very useful to us in those early days, aside from all that stuff,” Altman told host Nikolai Tangen.

He didn’t provide examples of those “superpowers,” but venture capitalist Marc Andreessen recently identified the psychological traits that make Musk the “supreme example” of the “unstoppable” entrepreneur.

This year, Musk expressed his disgust at the direction OpenAI had taken, and in July launched xAI, which he said was “definitely in competition” with Altman’s company. xAI’s ultimate goal, in typical Musk fashion, is to “understand the true nature of the universe.” To that end, he has brought in top AI talent from Google, DeepMind, Microsoft and his own Tesla.

Musk left the OpenAI board of directors in 2018. He offered to lead the organization, but withdrew from the offer after it was turned down. according to Signal.

One of its strengths today is that it co-founded OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015, but then switched to a “definite profit” model in 2019 — the same year it received a $1 billion investment from Microsoft, with More billions to follow.

Musk’s displeasure with OpenAI became increasingly apparent earlier this year, as the company’s valuation soared after the launch of ChatGPT, with the AI ​​chatbot becoming one of the fastest products ever to be adopted.

he chirp In February: “OpenAI was created as an open source company (that’s why it’s called “Open” AI), a non-profit company to act as a counterweight to Google, but now it’s a closed source and effectively profit-maximizing company. Controlled by Microsoft ”

Altman, although he acknowledges that OpenAI has taken an unconventional path in many ways, disputes this characterization of the partnership with Microsoft, As he does Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. But musk in May interview With CNBC, he said: “I’m concerned that Microsoft may actually be more in control than the leadership team at OpenAI thinks.”

He also complained in March about the fact that OpenAI’s change from a non-profit model was made after he donated millions to it.

“I’m still baffled as to how the nonprofit I donated nearly $100 million to somehow became a for-profit with a market capitalization of $30 billion.” chirp. “If this is legal, why isn’t everyone doing it?” Doubts later arose about the actual the amount he gaveBut it seems clear that he donated millions of dollars to the non-profit organization at the time.

Altman’s comments about Musk were mixed. In May, Altman said during a speech in London that “learning from Elon about what is possible to do” had been “very valuable.”

But he told them With Kara Swisher podcast in March, “I mean he’s an idiot, whatever you want to say about him, he has a style that I wouldn’t want to follow myself.”