OpenAI
Co-founded by Musk in 2015 as a non-profit AI safety lab. He left the board in 2018, then sued the company in 2024.
In December 2015, Musk and Sam Altman pledged $1 billion to build an AI lab that would give its research away freely — the philosophical opposite of what the big tech labs were doing. Musk believed a non-profit structure was the only protection against a privately-controlled superintelligence. Three years later he quit the board. By 2022 the lab had launched ChatGPT, transformed into a capped-profit entity backed by Microsoft, and become the most influential AI company on Earth — in Musk's view, the very outcome the founding structure was meant to prevent.
Founding Story
In December 2015, Musk and Sam Altman co-founded OpenAI at a dinner in Palo Alto alongside Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, John Schulman, and Andrej Karpathy. The founding thesis: if powerful AI was coming regardless, the only responsible response was to build it openly and prevent any single company — especially Google — from owning it.
Musk pledged approximately $1 billion across donors and served as co-chairman. He left the board in February 2018, publicly citing a conflict of interest with Tesla's AI work. OpenAI created a capped-profit subsidiary in 2019 and accepted Microsoft's $1 billion investment that year.
By 2022 ChatGPT had reached 100 million users in 60 days — the fastest product adoption in history. The non-profit Musk helped found had become, in his view, the very thing it was built to prevent: a closed commercial AI lab with a nine-figure valuation and a Microsoft co-pilot at the helm. He sued in March 2024.
- Dec 11, 2015Co-founds OpenAIPledges $1B alongside Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Reid Hoffman, and Y Combinator to found OpenAI as a nonprofit AI safety research lab.
- Feb 20, 2018Leaves OpenAI boardResigns from the OpenAI board citing a conflict of interest with Tesla's AI development for Autopilot. He later claims he also disagreed with the board's direction.
- Mar 1, 2024Musk sues OpenAIFiles suit in San Francisco Superior Court alleging OpenAI and Sam Altman breached the founding mission to develop AI for the benefit of humanity, not profit. The case is withdrawn…
- Aug 5, 2024Refiled OpenAI lawsuit in federal courtRe-files the OpenAI lawsuit in federal court with additional claims including racketeering (RICO), after the original California case was withdrawn. Adds Microsoft as a defendant.
Overview
OpenAI was announced in December 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, John Schulman, and Andrej Karpathy, with a pledged $1B from Musk and others. Founded as a 501(c)(3) non-profit aimed at "advancing digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole." Musk left the board in February 2018 — citing a conflict of interest with Tesla's AI work. OpenAI created a "capped-profit" subsidiary in 2019 and accepted Microsoft's $1B investment. ChatGPT launched November 2022. In March 2024 Musk sued OpenAI alleging breach of the founding non-profit agreement; he later turned the suit into a federal complaint.
Elon's Role
Pledged ~$1B in donations alongside Altman, LinkedIn's Hoffman, and YC.
Sued OpenAI alleging diversion from non-profit mission.
Co-founders
Key Milestones
- Dec 11, 2015founding
OpenAI announced
$1B pledge across founders. Mission: ensure AGI benefits all of humanity.
- Apr 27, 2016product
OpenAI Gym released
Reinforcement-learning toolkit; first major open-source product.
- Feb 20, 2018leadership
Musk leaves board
Cites Tesla AI conflict; remains a donor briefly.
- Mar 11, 2019leadership
Capped-profit OpenAI LP created
For-profit subsidiary structure announced, with capped returns.
- Jul 22, 2019funding
Microsoft $1B investment
Cloud + funding partnership.
- Nov 30, 2022product
ChatGPT launched
Free preview; reaches 100M users in 60 days.
- Mar 1, 2024lawsuit
Musk sues OpenAI in California
Alleges breach of founding non-profit purpose. Withdrawn June 2024.
- Aug 5, 2024lawsuit
Federal lawsuit refiled
Adds RICO claims; named defendants include Altman, Brockman, Microsoft.
Notable Tweets
“ChatGPT is scary good. We are not far from dangerously strong AI.”
Musk's reaction to ChatGPT launch, ironic given he co-founded OpenAI. Within months he was planning xAI and filing suit against OpenAI.
“OpenAI was created as an open source, non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft. Not what I intended at all.”
Public critique of OpenAI's evolution — the foundation of Musk's later lawsuit filed in March 2024.
Predictions
We may have AI smarter than any single human next year — by 2025.
Several frontier models (GPT-4o, Claude 3.5+, Grok-3) surpass average humans on many tests but general AGI remains contested.
By 2025, AI will probably be smarter than all humans combined.
Grok will be the most capable AI in the world within a year.
Controversies & Disputes
Musk v. Altman — OpenAI nonprofit mission trial
lawsuit2026Elon Musk's federal lawsuit against Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, OpenAI, and Microsoft reached trial in Oakland in April 2026. Musk argues OpenAI abandoned its founding nonprofit mission and seeks remedies aimed at OpenAI's charitable arm; OpenAI argues Musk knew about the commercial structure and is trying to handicap a rival to xAI.
