Elon Musk Says OpenAI Chief Scientist, Who Helped Fire Sam Altman, Should Join xAI Or Tesla

Recently, ChatGPT maker OpenAI witnessed a harrowing time after it fired CEO Sam Altman. The artificial intelligence community witnessed high drama for five days before OpenAI reached an agreement to bring back Sam Altman as the CEO and appoint new board members after nearly all of its employees threatened to quit over his ouster. The company's President and co-founder Greg Brockman also rejoined after a chaotic period that highlighted deep tensions at the heart of the Artificial Intelligence community. Now, OpenAI Chief Scientist and co-founder Ilya Sutskever finds himself in an awkward position as he had joined other OpenAI board members in firing Mr Altman. 

Mr Altman, in his statement on joining the company, had said that they will continue their professional relationship. He said at that time, "I harbor zero ill will towards him. While Ilya will no longer serve on the board, we hope to continue our working relationship." However, a new report suggested that Mr Sutskever has recently become "invisible" at OpenAI. A user on X, formerly Twitter, posted about the same and wrote, "Ilya should come work at Tesla!". This caught the attention of Tesla and SpaceX Chief Elon Musk. In response to the post, Mr Musk wrote, "or xAI." 

Or xAI

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2023

According to scholar Helen Toner, who served on the board before leaving following Mr Altman's return, the CEO firing of OpenAI "wasn't about AI safety, it was about a lack of trust," as reported by the Wall Street Journal. After Mr Altman returned, Mr Sutskever actually took a step back and said, "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions."

However, Mr Musk has made note of the Chief Scientist's role in Mr Altman's termination on several occasions, including in an appearance at the New York Times Dealbook event. "I think we should be concerned about this because I think Ilya actually has a strong moral compass. He really sweats it over questions of what is right. And if Ilya felt strongly enough to want to fire Sam, well, I think the world should know what was that reason," he said.