When Vinod Khosla sat down with Fortune‘s Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell in early March, he offered some key context for one of the most consequential tech trials in American history: Musk vs. Altman.
“He wanted to be CEO,” Khosla said of Elon Musk on the Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast. He explained the context around how Musk and Altman fell out around the governance of a then-obscure AI lab called OpenAI. Khosla added that he “wasn’t privy” to previous internal battles at OpenAI, telling Shontell to “take that with a grain of salt,” but he had no doubt that Musk wanted to run the AI company. “It seems like he wanted it like a private fiefdom, with him in charge, instead of what he claims—the public benefit company it is now. He essentially was holding the team, Sam and Greg and others hostage, and Sam had to look for other sources of money.”
