Musk vs Altman: Before suing OpenAI, Musk tried to bring its leaders under Tesla

Long before Sam Altman became the public face of the AI boom and ChatGPT transformed the tech industry, Elon Musk was quietly attempting to pull OpenAI’s leadership into Tesla.

New details emerging from the ongoing legal battle between Musk and OpenAI reveal that the billionaire entrepreneur proposed several sweeping ideas in 2018, including turning OpenAI into a Tesla subsidiary or recruiting its top leaders to spearhead a new AI division inside the electric carmaker.

Court testimony and internal communications presented on Wednesday suggest Musk had become increasingly doubtful that OpenAI, then operating as a non-profit research organisation, could successfully build artificial general intelligence (AGI), the still-theoretical form of AI capable of matching or exceeding human intelligence.

As concerns grew, Musk began exploring alternatives.

One proposal involved bringing Altman, OpenAI president Greg Brockman and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever into Tesla’s fold. Another idea considered hiring Demis Hassabis to lead Tesla’s AI ambitions.

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The disclosures are central to Musk’s lawsuit, in which he accuses OpenAI’s leadership of abandoning the organisation’s original charitable mission by converting it into a profit-driven company. OpenAI, meanwhile, argues that Musk himself supported commercialisation, so long as he retained control.

A growing divide over AGI and control

Much of the testimony focused on the turbulent months leading up to Musk’s departure from OpenAI’s board in early 2018.

Messages shown in court revealed Musk’s frustration with OpenAI’s trajectory. In one exchange with technology executive Shivon Zilis, he wrote: “There is little chance of OpenAI being a successful force if I focus on TeslaAI.”

Zilis, who acted as a bridge between Musk and OpenAI’s founders during that period, testified that discussions were taking place around creating a world-class AI lab within Tesla that could rival Google DeepMind and Meta’s AI research efforts.

By early 2018, she had outlined multiple possible routes towards achieving AGI, many of which revolved around Tesla becoming the centre of those ambitions.

But OpenAI’s leadership remained unconvinced.

In one email shown during proceedings, Zilis told Musk’s then-chief of staff that OpenAI executives admired Musk personally but worried about his understanding of artificial intelligence. “They all think Elon is an incredible human being,” she wrote, “but that he really hasn’t done his homework AI/AGI and that really concerns them about working with him.”

The divide eventually became irreparable. Musk stepped away from OpenAI shortly afterwards, while the company later adopted its controversial capped-profit structure.

Courtroom battle exposes fractured relationships

The trial has evolved into more than just a dispute about corporate structure. It has become a public dissection of the personal and ideological clashes behind one of the world’s most influential AI companies.

OpenAI attorney William Savitt argued in court that Musk’s actions showed he was willing to support a for-profit model if it gave him authority over the technology. According to Savitt, Musk attempted to “fold OpenAI into Tesla”, and when that failed, he walked away.

Brockman earlier testified that Musk had sought “unilateral control over AGI”, something other founders considered unacceptable.

Zilis, who later became an executive at Tesla and Neuralink, told the court her priority has always been “the best outcome of AI for humanity”.

The testimony also revealed how personal relationships intersected with professional tensions. Years after Musk and OpenAI parted ways, Altman reportedly reached out to Zilis seeking advice on reconnecting with Musk. Her response carried a warning: “the only thing I wonder is if he’ll pull the ‘you should have gone with Tesla’ card on you.”