In December 2015, OpenAI, the parent of the popular ChatGPT chatbot, was co-founded by a group of young techies, including Elon Musk. The CEO of Tesla TSLA left the research laboratory's board in early 2018, citing a conflict of interest with his electric vehicle company's AI pursuits.
A recent piece by Semafor has revealed more to the story.
What Happened: In early 2018, Musk told fellow co-founder and current CEO Sam Altman that OpenAI had fallen way behind Google, which was founded in early 2018, as an open-source nonprofit and counterweight to Alphabet, Inc.'s GOOGL.
Musk then put forward a proposal to take over OpenAI and run it himself, but it was quickly turned down by Altman and the other founders. The billionaire CEO walked away and went back on his promise to donate $1 billion over a period of years. Semafor notes that he had contributed about $100 million by the time he left OpenAI.
Musk's departure was announced on February 20, 2018 — around the same time his flagship EV venture was struggling to stay afloat amid a ramp-up of its mass-market Model 3 sedan.
Altman Steps In: Altman, who was the president of technology startup accelerator Y Combinator, then took over the reigns of OpenAI, assuming the titles of president and director, according to Semafor.
Semafor noted that the company needed funding to train AI models on supercomputers while it was experiencing a cash crunch. It decided to move to transformer models and follow in the footsteps of Google Brain. According to Semafor, OpenAI has created a for-profit entity that will allow it to raise money to pay for computing power needed to develop AI models.
Read Next: Elon Musk Co-founded OpenAI, But Now He Says ChatGPT Parent 'Not What Intended At All'