Elon Musk, one of the three co-founders of OpenAI, questioned the changing business practices of the company during an interview with David Faber at Tesla's Giga Texas factory. He said, "I came up with the name" and "I am the reason that OpenAI exists.". Musk claimed the non-profit startup wouldn't have come to where it is today without his instrumental role.
Initially committing to invest $1 billion in backing, Musk invested roughly $50 million in the startup. He resigned from the board of OpenAI after a dispute over his attempt to buy out the startup and a conflict of interest. Since then, it switched to a for-profit entity and accepted a $1 billion infusion from Microsoft to accelerate the development of ChatGPT and image generator DALL-E. Musk questions transitioning from a non-profit business to a $30 billion limited-profit company.
I’m still confused as to how a non-profit to which I donated ~$100M somehow became a $30B market cap for-profit. If this is legal, why doesn’t everyone do it?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 15, 2023
He was also skeptical about the governance structure, policies and revenue plans of OpenAI after turning into a closed-source entity. The move conflicts with its name, which suggests it's open-source. In a tweet, he revealed it had access to the Twitter database for training, which he put a stop to. After the launch of ChatGPT, he remarked it was scary good, and it can quickly turn dangerous. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, replied to his tweet, agreeing about the potential cybersecurity risk and being close to getting real AGI within the next decade.
This interview happened on the same day Sam Altman found addressing a US Senate panel on the rise of generative AI and its possible effects on many different industries suggesting AI needs regulation.
Source: CNBC
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