How Elon Musk Squeezed OpenAI: They 'Are Gonna Want to Kill Me’

Elon Musk returned to the witness stand in his ongoing legal battle against OpenAI, revealing a 2017 power struggle where he used funding and hiring tactics to squeeze the organization. Under cross-examination by OpenAI's lawyer William Savitt, Musk admitted to halting his $5 million quarterly payments—part of a $1 billion pledge—starting in spring 2017. Emails showed his family office head asking if he should continue withholding funds, to which Musk replied, "Yes." The power struggle climaxed when Musk demanded the right to choose four of seven board members for the new for-profit arm, giving him initial control. Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's chief scientist, rejected the proposal, fearing Musk would have too much power.

After losing the board battle, Musk actively recruited OpenAI researchers to Tesla and Neuralink. In June 2017, he hired Andrej Karpathy, a top computer vision researcher, as Tesla's director of AI. Musk testified that Karpathy had already decided to leave, but emails showed Musk telling a Tesla VP, "The openai guys are gonna want to kill me, but it had to be done." Musk also directed Neuralink to hire from OpenAI, arguing it would be illegal to restrict employment. He sent a text to board member Shivon Zilis in February 2018 saying Tesla would "actively try to move three or four people from OpenAI." The case continues with cross-examination of Musk and upcoming witnesses including OpenAI's Greg Brockman.