Does Elon Musk want to become an "AGI dictator"?
OpenAI makes wild claims about its billionaire arch-rival as the battle to control superintelligence goes nuclear.
OpenAI has claimed that Elon Musk sought "absolute control" of the company in a power struggle that risked the creation of an "AGI dictatorship".
The firm behind ChatGPT has released a cache of apparently revealing emails as it launched a bid to countersue Musk - who co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit with its current CEO, Sam Altman.
On X, OpenAI alleged: "Elon’s nonstop actions against us are just bad-faith tactics to slow down OpenAI and seize control of the leading AI innovations for his personal benefit. Today, we counter-sued to stop him."
It also alleged: "Elon’s never been about the mission. He’s always had his own agenda. He tried to seize control of OpenAI and merge it with Tesla as a for-profit – his own emails prove it. When he didn’t get his way, he stormed off.
"Elon is undoubtedly one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. But these antics are just history on repeat – Elon being all about Elon."
One AGI to rule them all
Musk launched his own legal action earlier this year - after withdrawing a previous case.
His complaint hinged around OpenAI's move towards becoming a for-profit firm, with his lawyers alleging "perfidy and deceit... of Shakespearean proportions".
Now OpenAI has unleashed a dossier of emails providing a glimpse into discussions that took place before Elon flounced off and OpenAI became a company earning so much cash that its founder was spotted driving a multi-million dollar Koenigsegg Regera sportscar.
READ MORE: Elon Musk makes frightening AI p(doom) apocalypse prediction
In 2017, Elon reportedly proposed creating a company called Open Artificial Intelligence Technologies, Inc - which was rejected by the OpenAI leadership.
“The current structure provides you with a path where you end up with unilateral absolute control over the AGI," lya Sutskever co-founder allegedly wrote at the time. "You stated that you don't want to control the final AGI, but during this negotiation, you've shown to us that absolute control is extremely important to you."
He added: "The goal of OpenAI is to make the future good and to avoid an AGI dictatorship... It is a bad idea to create a structure where you could become a dictator if you chose to, especially given that we can create some other structure that avoids this possibility."
Get your ass to Mars...
Elon is also said to have told the OpenAI bosses that "he didn’t care about equity" but "needed to accumulate $80B for a city on Mars".
"Please be explicit that I have no financial interest in the for-profit arm of OpenAI," he was quoted as saying.
Ultimately, Musk resigned as co-chair of OpenAI and started a competitor called xAI.
So far, he has not become an AGI dictator. In fact, the pantheon of AI deities has become far from monotheistic, thanks to the rise of new open source competitors like China's Deepseek.
It looks likely that AGI will not be one entity but many competing superintelligences - with both Musk and OpenAI competing to unleash one AI to rule them all.
We have written to Musk via the Tesla press office and asked for comment on OpenAI's claims.
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