The diary page reveals that Musk and Altman gain power at OpenAI

“This is our only chance to get rid of Elon,” Brockman, co-founder, Chairman and OpenAI, wrote in his diary in the fall of 2017. “Is he the chosen excellent leader?”.

Theo ReutersBrockman’s diary entry is part of thousands of pages of internal documents disclosed in Oakland, California federal court since Musk, one of OpenAI’s co-founders, sued OpenAI itself, CEO Altman and Chairman Brockman in 2024. The trial, presided over by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, is considered important regarding the future of OpenAI, and even the future of artificial intelligence in general.

CBS News review, the latest document provides a rare glimpse into the egos and personalities of its co-founders – factors that shaped OpenAI from a nonprofit research lab in Brockman’s apartment to a “giant” now valued at more than $850 billion.

According to court documents, Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI with the goal of developing artificial intelligence to benefit humanity and fight competitors like Google. In particular, Altman was the one who proactively approached Musk about this idea in May 2015, then named it “Manhattan Project on Artificial Intelligence”.

Musk’s participation is considered a key factor that helped OpenAI immediately attract top researchers, including former chief scientist Iya Sutskever – who later tried to overthrow Altman but failed, eventually leaving OpenAI in May 2024.

In fact, OpenAI operates smoothly as a non-profit AI laboratory. But by mid-2017, Musk began to question the feasibility, at one point even delaying the project’s development after conflicts with Altman, Brockman and Sutskever. One of the sources is that Musk wants to become CEO of the company, but the other co-founders feel “uncomfortable”.

Around this time, Brockman expressed disappointment in Musk’s stance and wondered whether turning OpenAI into a profitable venture could make him rich. “Financially, what would it take for me to reach a billion dollars?” Brockman wrote in his diary. “Accepting Elon’s terms would destroy two things: the ability to choose (although it is possible to reject his ideas) and the economic aspect. But rejecting Elon would actually cause us to lose Sam.”

In the diary, Brockman expressed his hesitation between wanting to become an engineer as his original goal, or “the crazy opportunity to become the person in charge and accept the challenge”. “We may have initial success,” Brockman wrote. “This is already a different game than anyone I know. The potential is huge.”

However, Brockman also doubts Musk, especially his ability to build AI hardware for OpenAI without Sutskever. “Elon helped get the ball rolling. But now we really understand what we’re trying to do,” Brockman wrote.

In fact, Brockman has made his choice. By January 2018, Musk seemed to give up his ambitions, before leaving a month later.

“OpenAI is on a sure path to failure compared to Google,” Musk wrote in an email to Brockman before leaving OpenAI. However, the American billionaire’s prediction was wrong, when at the end of 2022, the company launched ChatGPT and quickly became a huge success.

Responding to this content, OpenAI emphasized that “the lawsuit is always a baseless and jealous attempt” by Musk to sabotage competitors. Meanwhile, the American billionaire also responded: “I initiated, funded, recruited important talents and taught them everything I know about how to make a startup successful for the benefit of the community. Then they robbed that charity.”

Musk sued OpenAI in 2024, then withdrew the lawsuit and sued. In the filing, he accused his former company, Altman, and Microsoft – an initial investor in OpenAI – of betraying its original non-profit mission. He wants this startup to return to the old model, dismissing Altman and Brockman from management positions and the board of directors.

The lawsuit is expected to have witnesses from a series of characters, including Musk, Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. In addition, Shivon Zilis, a former board member of OpenAI, who had four children with Musk, also participated.