Elon Musk, Sam Altman Trade Fresh Barbs Over OpenAI: ‘You Stole A Non-Profit’

Elon Musk and Sam Altman are once again at odds, clashing on X over OpenAI.

The flare-up began last week when Altman posted a screenshot of a July 2018 email confirming a $45,000 payment to reserve a next-generation Tesla Roadster. Separate screenshots then showed Altman requesting a $50,000 refund and the email bouncing back.

In response, on Nov. 1, Musk fired back, saying, “You stole a non-profit.”

He followed up, writing, “And you forgot to mention act 4, where this issue was fixed and you received a refund within 24 hours.”

On Nov. 2, Altman replied, “I helped turn the thing you left for dead into what should be the largest non-profit ever. You know as well as anyone a structure like what OpenAI has now is required to make that happen.”

In a follow-up post, Altman added, “You also wanted Tesla to take OpenAI over, no nonprofit at all. And you said we had a 0% of success. Now you have a great AI company and so do we. Can’t we all just move on?”

Musk and Altman, along with Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman, co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a non-profit AI research company. Their partnership has since deteriorated, with the pair exchanging public barbs on both social media and in legal filings. Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018 and went on to establish xAI in 2023, while Altman remains CEO of OpenAI.

OpenAI’s growth since 2015 has been remarkable, helped significantly by the launch of its generative chatbot ChatGPT in 2022. Since Musk’s departure from the board, he has not shied away from criticising the company and Altman.

“OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it ‘Open’ AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft. Not what I intended at all,” Musk had written in a 2023 post on X.

According to a Business Insider report, Musk has also pursued legal action against OpenAI and Altman. Musk’s legal team alleged in court filings that Altman and Brockman “deceived” Musk into co-founding the startup by emphasising his concerns over AI.

OpenAI finalised its transition to a for-profit structure in October. In a blog post, the company stated that its non-profit arm remains in control of the for-profit division. The post further explained that the for-profit arm, known as OpenAI Group PBC, shares the same mission as the OpenAI Foundation.