AI Wars: Why Elon Musk and Sam Altman fell out over OpenAI

Flashback to 2015. Sam Altman, fresh off his Y Combinator successes, and Elon Musk, already a global tech demigod, came together to launch OpenAI. It was a big idea: build artificial general intelligence (AGI) and make sure it didn’t turn into Skynet. OpenAI was supposed to be open, transparent, and committed to benefiting all of humanity. Musk, ever the prophet of doom, often compared AI to summoning a demon. Altman, less dramatic but equally ambitious, saw OpenAI as the antidote to unchecked corporate control of AI.