Elon Musk is a co-founder of OpenAI but he stepped down in 2018 for several reasons including conflicts of interest, because Tesla was increasingly using AI technologies.
He has since criticized OpenAI's shift from a non-profit to a "capped-profit" model and its growing ties to Microsoft, and he's sued them twice.
OpenAI has now responded with a blog post which is essentially a timeline.
- November 2015: OpenAl started as a nonprofit, which Elon questioned
- December 2015: OpenAl publicly announced
- Early 2017: Our research progress led us to realize we would need billions of dollars for the compute to build AGl
- Summer 2017: We and Elon agreed that a for-profit was the next step for OpenAl to advance the mission
- Fall 2017: Elon demanded majority equity, absolute control, and to be CEO of the for-profit
- September 2017: Elon created the public benefit corporation called "Open Artificial Intelligence Technologies, Inc."
- September 2017: We rejected Elon's terms because giving him unilateral control of OpenAl and its technology would be contrary to the mission
- January 2018: Elon said OpenAl was on a path for certain failure unless we merged into Tesla.
- February 2018: Elon resigned as co-chair of OpenAl
- December 2018: Elon told us to raise "billions per year immediately or forget it"
- March 2019: We announced the capped-profit OpenAl LP, within the non-profit
- March 2023: Elon started his OpenAl competitor, xAl
Further, OpenAI has called Elon Musk's latest filing against OpenAI 'illegal', and it marks his fourth attempt "to reframe his claims".
