Elon Musk wanted to merge OpenAI and Tesla in 2018, Sam Altman and others rejected the idea

When OpenAI gained popularity in 2022 due to the craze around ChatGPT, not a lot of people were aware that Elon Musk was one of the early investors of the company. Musk, who met Altman before OpenAI was established, invested in the company in order to contribute towards developing artificial intelligence in a way that doesn't harm human beings in the long run. However, Musk departed from the company in 2018 and also let go of his stake in it. For a long time, it was reported that Elon Musk had left OpenAI because his other companies, Tesla and SpaceX, were also working on AI tech at the time.

However, the biography on Elon Musk, written by Walter Isaacson, tells a different story. As per Isaacson, Musk wanted OpenAI to become a part of Tesla, and the idea was strongly opposed by Altman and other board members of OpenAI.

Elon Musk wanted to merge OpenAI into Tesla

Isaacson writes that Musk's interest in artificial intelligence led him to launch other companies and products like Neuralink, Optimus, and Dojo. He even wanted to make Tesla cars self-driving. All of his attention in these companies caused a "break" with OpenAI in 2018. Musk wanted that OpenAI, which was falling behind Google according to him, should become a part of Tesla. This idea was rejected by the OpenAI team and Musk left the company. Altman, as a result, took charge as its president and Musk began to develop a rival AI team to start working on self-driving Tesla cars. The book also reveals that Musk poached computer vision specialist Andrej Karpathy from OpenAI.

Talking about the incident, Sam Altman told Isaacson, "We realised that Tesla was going to become an AI company and would be competing for the same talent as OpenAI. It pissed some of our team off, but I fully understood what was happening."

Eventually, OpenAI opened a for-profit arm under which popular chatbot ChatGPT was launched last year.

Earlier this month, Altman made an appearance on the In Good Company podcast and said that Elon was a "talent and attention magnet" for OpenAI and also had some "real superpowers" that were of immense help to the OpenAI team in the early days.

When Elon Musk and Google's Larry Page fought over AI

Isaacson also mentioned that Musk and Google's co-founder Larry Page fought over AI control before Google had acquired DeepMind.

Musk and Page knew each other for over a decade and that the Tesla CEO often stayed at his house. During their late-night conversations, Musk would often talk about the possible dangers of AI, "almost obsessively". However Page, remained dismissive.

Then, in 2013, the duo met at Musk's birthday part in California and got into a "passionate debate". Musk's argument was that AI might one day replace humans making us "irrelevant or extinct". His friend Page, however, didn't agree with his view and said that even if AI machines were to surpass human intelligence and gain consciousness one day, how would it matter? Page reportedly said that it would "simply be the next stage of evolution".

When Musk said that human consciousness should be protected, Page called it "sentimental nonsense". He added that if consciousness could be replicated in a machine, it should hold equal worth. Page also accused Musk of being "specist," someone favouring his own species.

Musk then reportedly said, "Well, yes, I am pro-human. I f****** like humanity, dude."