OpenAI, in a bristling response to Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the company, accused the billionaire of rewriting history, publishing awith old emails allegedly showing that the billionaire lobbied for control over the start-up and attempted to merge it with Tesla, his car company.
The partly redacted messages shared by OpenAI shed light on one of the most closely scrutinized founding stories in Silicon Valley history. Industry insiders immediately pored over emails from the company’s early days, with some people attempting to use the latest AI tools to un-redact sentences. Musk is no stranger to court battles. In the past, he has said that he will wage legal fights even if they are unlikely to be successful if he believes he is in the right. OpenAI is also facing numerous other lawsuits from authors and news publishers who say the company used their content to train its AI without payment or permission.In addition to the emails, OpenAI suggests that Musk left OpenAI after an unsuccessful bid to take control, rather than an ideological dispute about openness.
Musk did not deliver on the full commitment, ultimately providing less than $45 million, OpenAI said, but he continued to push for control of the company as it underwent a change in structure in 2017.“We couldn’t agree to terms on a for-profit with Elon because we felt it was against the mission for any individual to have absolute control over OpenAI,” the company said in its response. “He then suggested instead merging OpenAI into Tesla.