‘All money in the world won't matter if AI goes wrong’: Elon Musk wants OpenAI to disclose reason for firing Sam Altman

OpenAI, the ChatGPT-maker, board announced to remove CEO Sam Altman from his position and now Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants the company to reveal the reason behind this ‘drastic action’. Notably, Musk’s AI company xAI is a rival of OpenAI. Sam Altman being sacked from OpenAI triggered a huge drama from technology industry over the weekend.

Expressing his concern over the matter, Musk recently posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, "Very important for the public to know why the board felt so strongly about their actions. If it was a matter of AI safety, that would affect all of Earth.” He added, “OpenAI is not publicly traded and all the money in the world won't matter if AI goes wrong.”

Given the risk and power of advanced AI, the public should be informed of why the board felt they had to take such drastic action

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2023

The ChatGPT-maker, in a blogpost stated that the board “no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI”. It also added that Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications”. He is replaced by Mira Murati, who was previously working as OpenAI’s chief technology officer (CTO).

OpenAI is not publicly traded and all the money in the world won’t matter if AI goes wrong

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2023

As per a report by The New York Times, Ilya Sutskever, the company’s chief scientist and a board member, defended Altman’s ouster in a meeting held after the big announcement. He even dismissed employees’ suggestions that pushing Altman out is a “hostile takeover”. According to Sutskever, removal of Altman “was necessary to protect OpenAI’s mission of making artificial intelligence beneficial to humanity”.

When Musk got to know that Sutskever was quite instrumental in making this decision, he wrote, “I am very worried. Ilya has a good moral compass and does not seek power. He would not take such drastic action unless he felt it was absolutely necessary.”

I am very worried.

Ilya has a good moral compass and does not seek power.

He would not take such drastic action unless he felt it was absolutely necessary.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2023

Notably, investors are trying to back Altman to bring him back as the CEO. According to a report by Bloomberg, Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, who is the biggest investor in OpenAI, reached out to Altman after hearing the news of his layoff. He offered to support him in his next steps. Microsoft has a stake of over $10 billion in OpenAI.

Sam Altman recently visited the OpenAI office for the first time after the fiasco. He posted a selfie on X with him wearing a visitor’s badge that has “Guest” written on it. The caption of this image read, “first and last time i ever wear one of these.”

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