Change Name To "ClosedAI", Elon Musk Tells Sam Altman's OpenAI. Here's Why

Billionaire Elon Musk recently sued OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman, the firm behind ChatGPT, accusing them of breaching contractual agreements made when he helped start the ChatGPT-maker in 2015. He alleged that they violated the artificial intelligence startup's founding mission by putting profit ahead of benefiting humanity. The Microsoft-backed company's focus on seeking profits breaks that agreement, lawyers for Elon Musk said in the lawsuit. Notably, Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but stepped down from the company's board in 2018.

Now, the Tesla and SpaceX Chief has stated that he would drop the lawsuit against OpenAI if they agree to change their name to "'ClosedAI". Mr Musk said in a post on X, "Change your name to ClosedAI and I will drop the lawsuit." In subsequent posts, he said, "OpenAI needs to stop living a lie."

To ClosedAI and I will drop the lawsuit

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2024

Further, he edited a picture of Sam Altam wearing a guest ID Card and changed the details of the card with the words "ClosedAI" alongside OpenAI's logo.

Fixed it pic.twitter.com/KPtYLsJU3h

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2024

This comes as the AI company released a set of private emails with Elon Musk in response to the lawsuit on March 6. "We're sad that it's come to this with someone whom we've deeply admired -- someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we would fail, started a competitor, and then sued us when we started making meaningful progress towards OpenAI's mission without him," they said in a blog post.

In 2017, "we all understood we were going to need a lot more capital to succeed at our mission -- billions of dollars per year, which was far more than any of us, especially Elon, thought we'd be able to raise as the non-profit," they said.

As per the blog and emails, Mr Musk suggested that the AI company be attached "to Tesla as its cash cow". However, when the OpenAI team refused he "soon chose to leave OpenAI, saying that our probability of success was 0," adding he planned to build an AGI competitor within Tesla.

"When he left in late February 2018, he told our team he was supportive of us finding our own path to raising billions of dollars," OpenAI added.