During this week’s court hearing, Elon Musk acknowledged that his firm, xAI, leveraged OpenAI’s products in the training of its Grok model.
When questioned about his rationale for employing OpenAI to train xAI, given his professed concerns about OpenAI’s model being hazardous, the billionaire stated, “Benchmarking one’s AI against the output of other AIs is a common industry practice.”
Furthermore, responding to an inquiry regarding why his own venture, xAI, was not established as a non-profit, Musk offered the explanation, “For-profit entities are capable of providing societal value.”
It is worth recalling that during cross-examination in court, Elon Musk asserted he was apprised of early discussions centered on transitioning OpenAI into a for-profit entity, yet co-founder Sam Altman assured him the organization would maintain its non-profit status.
Musk characterized OpenAI as his creation: “The concept, the name, recruiting the core personnel, imparting all my knowledge to them, and providing all the initial capital—that originated with me. It was conceived as a non-profit entity, not designed to benefit any single party. I could have structured it commercially, but I deliberately opted against that.”
As a reminder, Musk has accused Sam Altman of betraying him and the public trust by abandoning OpenAI’s mission as a benevolent steward of AI for humanity’s benefit and transforming what began as a non-profit into a profit-driven corporation.
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