OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he doesn't want a beef with Elon Musk, but he wants people to know that the billionaire is "totally wrong" about claims he has made about the artificial intelligence company.
Altman made the remarks at an event in Delhi, India, on Wednesday, when he was asked about Musk's claim that OpenAI isn't really a nonprofit, because of the billions Microsoft invested in the firm, according to Insider.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gives a speech during a meeting, at the Station F in Paris on May 26, 2023. Altman pushed back this week against claims that Elon Musk has made about his company, which they founded together. ((Photo by JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images) / Getty Images)
"I don't really want to get into like an Elon feud fight. I like the dude," Altman reportedly replied. "I think he's totally wrong about this stuff. He can sort of say whatever he wants, but I'm like proud of what we're doing, and I think we're going to make a positive contribution to the world, and I try to stay above all that."
Altman and Musk co-founded OpenAI together in 2015, but Musk resigned from the board in 2018. At the time, the San Francisco startup tied Musk's departure to Tesla’s work on building automated driving systems.
(L-R) Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk and then-Y Combinator President Sam Altman speak onstage during the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit on Oct. 6, 2015, in San Francisco, California. The pair co-founded OpenAI that same year, but Musk left the boar (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair / Getty Images)
But Musk has been critical of OpenAI several times since his departure, saying that it has strayed from his original open source intentions and at one point suggested that he might sue the company.
Musk has repeatedly warned of the dangers of advanced AI, saying it could threaten humanity. In March, he joined a host of other tech moguls in signing an open letter calling for a six-month moratorium on the training of systems more advanced than OpenAI's GPT-4.
Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the owner of Twitter, said in April that he would start his own AI chatbot, called TruthGPT, after a March 9 filing showed that he had started a new artificial intelligence company called X.AI.
Tech mogul Elon Musk has launched his own artificial intelligence company to compete with Google and Microsoft. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images / Getty Images)
He told The Wall Street Journal in May that he sees the need for another company to rival Google and Microsoft, saying, "I think there should be a significant third horse in the race."
Both Altman and Musk have called for advanced AI to be regulated.
FOX Business' Julia Musto contributed to this report.