Musk v. Altman begins
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Elon Musk: The probability of OpenAI being relevant is 0%
On Wed, 26 Dec 2018 at 20:07, Elon Musk wrote:
My probability assessment of OpenAI being relevant to DeepMind/Google without a dramatic change in execution and resources is 0%. Not 1%. I wish it were otherwise.
Even raising several hundred million wonât be enough. This needs billions per year immediately or forget it.
Unfortunately, humanityâs future is in the hands of Demis.
https://nyti.ms/2Rjetd3?smid=nytcore-ios-share
And they are doing a lot more than this.
OpenAI reminds me of Bezos and Blue Origin. They are hopelessly behind SpaceX and getting worse, but the ego of Bezos has him insanely thinking that they are not!
I really hope Iâm wrong.
Elon
On Dec 30, 2018, at 2:04 PM, Sam Altman wrote:
Can we meet the first week of January to discuss what we can do to increase that percentage?
Speaking for myself, I believe we have a good plan, a credible path to get sufficient capital, but are not executing nearly fast enough.
None of us want to be Bezos here!
On Mon, Dec 31, 2018 at 4:01 AM Elon Musk wrote:
I could meet on Wednesday in the Bay Area.
Will also be at the AI safety conference on Saturday (Jan 5).
OpenAI is not a serious counterweight to DeepMind/Google and will only get further behind. It is surprising that this is isnât obvious to you.
In general, always overestimate competitors. You are doing the opposite.
[This document is from Musk v. Altman (2026).]
Previously: 15+ documents from Musk v. Altman in the full archive, including emails and messages from Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, and Microsoft
Editorsâ Note: A heavily redacted version of this document was previously published by OpenAI in 2024.
Elon Musk: âThis is a bait and switchâ
October 23, 2022
Elon Musk
I was disturbed to see OpenAI with a $20B valuation. De facto. I provided almost all the seed, A and most of B round funding.
Elon Musk
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-valued-at-nearly-20-billion-in-advanced-talks-with-microsoft-for-more-funding
Elon Musk
This is a bait and switch
Sam Altman
I agree this feels badâwe offered you equity when we established the cap profit, which you didnât want at the time but we are still very happy to do any time youâd like.
We saw no alternative, given the amount of capital we needed and needing still to preserve away to âgive the AGI to humanityâ, other than the capped profit structure.
Fwiw I personally have no equity and never have. Am trying to navigate tricky tightrope the best I can and would love to talk about how it can be better any time you are free. Would also love to show you recent updates.
Elon Musk
I will be in SF most of this week for the Twitter acquisition. Letâs talk Tues or Wed.
Sam Altman
[Liked âI will be in SF most of this week for the Twitter acquisition. Letâs talk Tues or Wed.â]
[This document is from Musk v. Altman (2026).]
Previously: 15+ documents from Musk v. Altman in the full archive, including emails and messages from Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, and Microsoft
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Mark Zuckerberg: âI just logged into Snapchat for the first time in a whileâ
August 31, 2022
Mark Zuckerberg
Random thing. I just logged into Snapchat for the first time in a while to see what progress theyâre making with AR. What surprised me is how porny and inappropriate the content theyâre featuring is in their equivalent of Reels (Spotlight) and their 3P content stories (Stories). I was completely blown away that they havenât faced more scrutiny for this, especially given that their audience skews so much younger. Itâs not nudity but itâs really raunchy. I would never let my kids anywhere near this. It seems like we could easily get more scrutiny on them for this, and perhaps that would help the next time we face scrutiny for youth content on our services.
David Ginsberg
yup - i havenât logged on in years, but will today. Iâll have the team look at it.
[This document is from In Re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation (2026).]
Previously: Mark Zuckerberg tries to buy Snapchat (October 28, 2013)
Previously: 30+ documents from Mark Zuckerberg in the full archive
Satya Nadella and Sam Altman on ChatGPT
August 31, 2022
Satya Nadella
Btw...when do you think you will activate your paid subscription for chatGPT?
Sam Altman
we are hoping to be ready by end of jan, but we can be flexible beyond that. the only real reason for rushing it is we are just so out of capacity and delivering a bad user experience. DAUs still growing rapidly
Sam Altman
any preference on when we do it?
Sam Altman
btw, we shared with mikhail and bill gates last night that we believe we have now done the research to make a model as good as GPT-4 at 1/50th of the cost(!), and 3x the speed. we are planning to delay GPT-5 to go off and create this.
Satya Nadella
Let me think about it and weigh in. Overall getting this in place sooner is best. At some level Bing is the scoped ad supported version. So we collectively have both in market on top of the same base model.
[This document is from Musk v. Altman (2026).]
Previously: Microsoft CTO: Why the OpenAI board really fired Sam Altman (November 19, 2023)
Previously: Sam Altman texts Satya Nadella and Bret Taylor (November 19, 2023)
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