Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has extended a friendly gesture to Elon Musk, the head of Tesla. This happened after Musk shared an old post in which Altman had expressed strong views against former U.S. President Donald Trump.
AI is Bigger Than Our Dispute, Says Altman
Altman said that their personal differences are small compared to the importance of building Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – a powerful form of AI that can understand and learn like humans.
On May 10, Musk responded to a nearly decade-old post by Altman. In that post, Altman had claimed he would never vote for Donald Trump. Back in 2016, Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham had also written, “Few people have done more than Sam Altman to defeat Trump.”
Altman replied to Paul Graham’s comment saying, “Thanks, Paul.” When Musk recently shared that old conversation again, Altman responded by sharing a Guardian article where Musk was quoted saying, “I don’t hate the man (Trump), but it’s time for him to hang up his hat.”
“We Were Both Wrong,” Says Altman
Sharing that article, Altman wrote, “We were both wrong. Or at least I was definitely wrong. But that was 2016. This is 2022.” He continued in the same post, “Let’s meet next week. Let’s be friends. AGI is too important to let our small fight get in the way.”
Musk, who has been close to Trump in the past, has been running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to reduce public spending. His campaign support for Republican leaders has had a major political impact.
Altman’s New Political Stand Through AI Investment
Meanwhile, Altman has shown a shift in his political role by helping launch a $500 billion project called “Project Stargate” to build AI infrastructure in the U.S.
Long-Running Tension Over OpenAI’s Direction
Musk has often criticized the direction OpenAI is taking under Altman’s leadership. When OpenAI was launched in 2015, Musk was one of its co-founders, and it started as a nonprofit. However, Altman later pushed for making it a for-profit model, which caused disagreements.
After months of internal uncertainty, OpenAI recently announced that its nonprofit board would continue to control the company’s decisions, ensuring it follows its original mission.
AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, is a concept of a future machine that can learn, reason, and perform tasks across many fields just like humans. Altman believes this technology is too important to be affected by personal disputes.
