At his OpenAI trial, Musk relitigates an old friendship
Musk reveals Page called him a 'speciest' for caring about humanity over AI
In his ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI, Elon Musk testified Tuesday that one of his core motivations for co-founding the company was a philosophical rift with Google co-founder Larry Page over AI safety. Musk described a conversation where he raised the prospect of AI wiping out humanity, and Page shrugged it off as 'fine' so long as AI itself survived. Page called Musk a 'speciest' for being 'pro human.' Musk called the attitude 'insane.' The testimony, given under oath for the first time, adds a personal dimension to the legal battle over OpenAI's mission.
The friendship between Musk and Page, once so close that Fortune included them on its 2016 list of secretly best-friend business leaders and Musk regularly crashed at Page's Palo Alto home, did not survive the founding of OpenAI. When Musk recruited Google AI star Ilya Sutskever to help launch the company in 2015, Page felt personally betrayed and cut off contact. Musk has told this story before, including to author Walter Isaacson for his biography, but Tuesday was the first time he said it under oath. Page has not commented. As recently as 2023, Musk told podcaster Lex Fridman he wanted to patch things up, saying 'We were friends for a very long time.'
- Musk testified that a 2015 conversation with Larry Page about AI safety directly motivated him to co-found OpenAI
- Page said AI wiping out humanity would be 'fine' if AI survived, calling Musk a 'speciest' for being pro-human
- The friendship ended when Musk recruited Google AI star Ilya Sutskever for OpenAI, which Page saw as betrayal
Why It Matters
Highlights how personal relationships and philosophical divides shape the AI industry's biggest players and their competing visions