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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Chris Stokel-Walker

Elon Musk owning OpenAI would be a terrible idea. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen

Picture of Sam Altman next to a picture of Elon Musk in profile, both in shirts and jackets with no ties
Sam Altman and Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds and Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty Images

Elon Musk and Sam Altman aren’t exactly the best of friends. The two had a blowout argument over the future direction of OpenAI – the company they came together to found in 2015 – with Altman seemingly content to pursue a for-profit approach and Musk feeling that was forswearing the founding principles of the firm as well as its name. OpenAI couldn’t be open, he reckoned, if it was closed off and trying to make money rather than better humanity.

So it’s no surprise that Musk, who lodged an audacious bid to take over Twitter a little more than two years ago, which ended up with his ownership of the platform now called X, has sought to put a spoiler in two years of near-untrammelled growth for OpenAI.

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