Musk and Altman struggle over the steering wheel
OpenAI & Elon Musk — joint press announcement, OpenAI Blog: 'Elon Musk departs OpenAI Board'
“Elon Musk will depart the board as OpenAI enters an advanced phase. This will eliminate a potential future conflict of interest with Tesla's self-driving AI work.”
Elon Musk to Sam Altman and Greg Brockman — private email negotiation, Internal email correspondence
“Musk: 'OpenAI has zero chance of beating Google DeepMind without massive capital. My assessment is that OpenAI should be attached to Tesla as its cash cow.' Altman & Brockman: 'We cannot agree to Elon having full control and majority ownership.'”
The Split:The departure was publicly framed as an amicable separation to avoid conflicts of interest. The unsealed emails revealed a ferocious clash for ultimate ownership and control, with Musk demanding Tesla absorb OpenAI.
'Departing to avoid potential conflicts of interest' usually means one faction tried to seize majority control and was repelled.