Inside Elon Musk's feud with OpenAI and Sam Altman as ChatGPT makers reveal private emails in dramatic escalation

Elon Musk and Sam Altman, once technology visionaries on a joint mission to save the world from the threats of AI, have become embroiled in a fallout that has resulted in a lawsuit and the the publication of private emails.

Altman once looked up to Musk when he first met him at SpaceX's headquarters in Southern California a decade ago, praising his 'conviction' and ambition. 

The pair went on to co-found OpenAI in 2015, a non-profit to serve as a check on the potential threats artificial intelligence could pose to humanity. 

After OpenAI executives refused an offer to be bought out by Tesla, Musk left the company in 2018. He has since slammed OpenAI for accepting $90 billion of funding, saying the commercial enterprise flies in the face of its original mission. 

Last week Musk filed a lawsuit against the ChatGPT makers for veering from its mission statement by seeking profit after entering into a $13 billion partnership with Microsoft and keeping the code for its newest generative AI products a secret.

Elon Musk (left) and Sam Altman (right) co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit venture in 2015 to help combat the threats of AI to humanity

Altman once looked up to Musk but the pair have since publicly fallen out 

Altman retaliated by revealing previously private emails from Elon Musk in an attempt to undermine the lawsuit. 

The publication of the emails marks a dramatic escalation in the feud between Musk and the company which has become a fissure in the artificial intelligence arms race. 

In an accompanying blog post blog post published on Tuesday evening, OpenAI said it intended to move to dismiss all of Musk's legal claims. 

'On a personal level it's sad,' Altman wrote in a memo to employees the day Musk filed his lawsuit against the company.

'I like to think of Elon as a builder and someone who competes by attempting to build better technology, and someone who I'd hope to be on our side,' he wrote. 

There are conflicting accounts about how the tech bromance came undone, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Those close to Altman told the publication Musk is jealous of how his former protegee upstaged him in the AI field, and that Musk cares more about beating OpenAI than AI safety. 

Tech experts say that AI could represent the greatest technological advance in history, with potentially-huge riches available to those who can make it work first. 

However, those close to Musk said his concerns about safety are genuine, and that he sees his own AI startup, xAI, as essential to developing an alternative to OpenAI. 

Elon Musk last week filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for chasing profit by partnering with Microsoft for $13 billion and keeping the code for its newest generative AI products a secret

Sam Altman has been credited with turning OpenAI into a company with a $90billion valuation

In March 2015 Altman and Musk teamed up to discuss their mutual fears about the risks AI could pose to humanity. 

Altman wrote to Musk asking if he would like to drafting an open letter to the U.S. government about AI. 

In May he emailed Musk again proposing that the start-up accelerator Y Combinator start a 'Manhattan Project' for artificial intelligence. 

'Probably worth a conversation' Musk wrote back. 

The pair then set up OpenAI and acted as the company's first co-chairs. 

Altman proposed in an email that June that the two of them sit on a five-member board that would govern the nonprofit.

Altman suggested waiting to send the open letter calling for AI regulation until after the lab was formally launched. 

Musk replied: 'Agree on all', according to the Journal. 

When OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022 Musk irritated Altman by publicly stating that the chatbot had accelerated a dangerous race to develop powerful AI

Former employees told the Journal that Musk was viewed internally as holding more influence and control than Altman.

Musk became the company's largest financial backer, donating $15 million in 2016 and $20 million in 2017.

When the company failed to reach any major research breakthroughs Musk reportedly grew restless, according to former employees that spoke to the Journal.

Musk placed much greater pressure on employees and sometimes threatened to quit the project all together, they recalled. 

In the same year Greg Brockman, a member of OpenAI's board suggested changing the company's structure to a for-profit enabling it to raise money from investors in order to pay for the enormous computing power needed to create language models that power chatbots. 

Musk resisted the idea, writing to Brockman, Ilya Sutskever and Altman that either 'go do something on your own or continue with OpenAI as a nonprofit. I will no longer fund OpenAI until you have made a firm commitment to stay or I'm just being a fool who is essentially providing free funding to a startup. Discussions are over.' 

Altman replied that he remained 'enthusiastic about the non-profit structure!' 

In their blog post revealing Musk's emails earlier this week OpenAI said Musk understood the company needed to work for profit but wanted majority equity, initial board control and to be CEO. 

In November 2015 Elon Musk wrote that the company needed $100million to avoid 'sounding hopeless' 

In an email from December 2018 Musk told Altman and other executives the company needed to make 'billions per year' and was unlikely to be able to compete with Google 

As discussions soured Musk withheld funding forcing the company to rely on another investor, Linked-In co-founder Reid Hoffman, to pay its bills, the Journal reported. 

Musk continued to fight for more control, arguing the company should become part of Tesla. 

Musk also began trying to coax OpenAI researchers to jump ship and join Tesla, irritating his colleagues. 

In February 2018 OpenAI executives rejected his bid to take control, and Musk stepped down as co-chair. 

Altman became chief executive and called all employees to a meeting, including Musk.  

Altman thanked Musk for his time at the organization and Musk told employees he intended to pursue his own AI research at Tesla, the Journal reported.

When a young researcher challenged Musk's decision, suggesting it would exacerbate the AI arms race Musk allegedly called the employee a 'jackass' and stormed out of the building. 

In 2018 Altman and Musk continued to discuss AI and even though Musk had stopped making cash donations to the OpenAI he still paid its office space rent. 

Altman continued to support Musk publicly after launching OpenAI's for-profit subsidiary in March 2019.  

When OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022 Musk irritated Altman by publicly stating that the chatbot had accelerated a dangerous race to develop powerful AI.

Musk also began questioning via tweets how the nonprofit he co-founded had launched a for-profit entity that raised billions of dollars from Microsoft. 

OpenAI had been considering using data from Twitter, recently acquired by Musk, to train its language models but Musk announced shortly after that he had cut off the company's access to that data. 

In response Altman invited Musk to OpenAI's headquarters where they held a long, closed-door meeting about the Twitter decision and ChatGPT, the Journal reported.

Musk revealed to Altman around the same time that he was planning to start his own AI company, xAI, to compete with OpenAI.

He also began to poach OpenAI employees for his new venture.

In November last year Musk announced the launch of his own less-woke chatbot, Grok. 

In recent weeks, xAI has begun preparing for a new fundraising round, a move likely to intensify its competition with OpenAI.

After Musk filed his lawsuit, Altman wrote in a memo to his staff: 'The implication that benefiting humanity is somehow at odds with building a business is confusing,' he said. 

Adding: 'I miss the old Elon.'