The offer made by a consortium of investors corralled by Musk is being made for the entity that is the largest shareholder in OpenAI. There is reportedly a list of credible backers including Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, Vy Capital and 8VC – a venture firm led by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale.
The scary aspect to this faux theatre is that these entrepreneurs are instrumental in the development of the most important, but potentially dangerous technology of our time.
Hollywood producer Ari Emanuel reportedly rounds out the list of luminaries supporting Musk’s tilt at control of OpenAI.
A year ago, Musk launched legal action against Altman and OpenAI alleging they violated the artificial intelligence start-up’s founding mission by putting profit ahead of benefiting humanity.
Musk has also started up his own AI company xAI which could merge with OpenAI following a deal, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
It represents a fly in the ointment of Altman’s plans for OpenAI, part of which includes converting it to a for-profit company and spending up to $US500 billion on AI infrastructure through a joint venture called Stargate.
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That’s the shiny new joint venture project being promoted by (but not funded by) Donald Trump. It is actually the baby of its financial backers OpenAI, US data centre giant Oracle, Japanese investment giant SoftBank and UAE-based investment firm MGX.
Despite his close association with Trump, Musk has been busy on X openly criticising Stargate.
“They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
Altman hit back, replying to Musk that he was “wrong, as you surely know”.
The scary aspect to this faux theatre is that these entrepreneurs are instrumental in the development of the most important, but potentially dangerous technology of our time.
It would be comforting to have some adults in the room.
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