Musk Says He Did All the Heavy Lifting in OpenAI's Early Years

C. Musk’s Crucial Contributions to OpenAI, Inc.

78. In an email to Altman and Brockman on the day of OpenAI, Inc.’s public announcement, Musk stated: “Our most important consideration is recruitment of the best people,” and pledged that helping in this effort would be his “absolute top priority 24/7[.]” He wrote: “We are outmanned and outgunned by a ridiculous margin by organizations you know well, but we have right on our side and that counts for a lot. I like the odds.”

79. As Altman had devised, Musk proved to be a driving force as the co-founder of OpenAI, Inc. He contributed the majority of its funding in its first several years, provided valuable advice and guidance on research directions, and most importantly, recruited some of the world’s leading scientists and engineers to work at the non-profit. In fact, recruiting for OpenAI, Inc. was a Herculean task in the face of relentless counter-recruiting by Google/DeepMind, which offered lavish compensation packages to squelch the new venture. But Musk persevered and proved instrumental in securing key talent including Chief Scientist Dr. Ilya Sutskever (“Sutskever”), whom he hired away from Google, as well as top research scientists Tim Salimans, Filip Wolski, and others.

80. Just as Altman planned, Musk used his connections, credibility, and clout to launch the venture. The mere fact OpenAI, Inc. was an “Elon Musk”-sponsored initiative and that Musk served as co-chair was key to its successful recruiting efforts.

81. Musk also brought the capital to give OpenAI, Inc. a fighting chance. In late February 2016, he emailed Altman and Brockman: “Whatever it takes to bring on ace talent is fin[e] by me. Deepmind is causing me extreme mental stress. If they win, it will be really bad news with their one mind to rule the world philosophy.”

82. In fact, Musk was OpenAI, Inc.’s largest financial backer. In 2016, Musk contributed over $15 million and contributed another nearly $20 million in 2017. He leased OpenAI, Inc.’s office space in the Pioneer Building in San Francisco, paid its monthly overhead expenses, and even though he stepped down from the Board on February 21, 2018, he nevertheless continued to make regular contributions to OpenAI, Inc. until September 14, 2020. All told, Musk contributed more than $44 million to OpenAI, Inc. in its first five critical years. It is fair to say that without Musk’s involvement, backing, and substantial supportive efforts, there would have been no OpenAI, Inc.