An OpenAI executive testified in court that Elon Musk once called him a "jackass" during a heated clash over AI safety concerns. Joshua Achiam, chief futurist at the startup, described the tense meeting and its impact on the company.
An OpenAI executive testified in court that Elon Musk once called him a "jackass" during a heated clash over AI safety concerns. Joshua Achiam, chief futurist at the startup, described the tense meeting and its impact on the company. According to Achiam, who was a research scientist at OpenAI around 2018, this exchange occurred during a February all-hands meeting where Musk announced his departure from the company he cofounded with CEO Sam Altman. At that time, about 50 to 60 employees were present for a question-and-answer session. Achiam testified that Musk expressed dissatisfaction with OpenAI's path and indicated concerns over a potential conflict of interest due to Tesla competing for elite AI talent. He also suggested that Musk was eager to pursue artificial general intelligence (AGI) in his own way, which Achiam described as "reckless" given the unknown risks involved. "I didn't know whether a science fiction superintelligence bootstrapping event where you set the thing running one night and it's so unbelievably smart it can crack encryption and take over the world was a science fiction scenario or not?" Achiam said. "It sounded like he wanted to race towards AGI, like he wanted to build it very fast because he was very worried that someone else would do the wrong thing with it." The testimony from Achiam appeared aimed at undermining Musk's portrayal of himself as focused on AI safety concerns. When an OpenAI lawyer asked whether Musk may have been trying to push him out of his "comfort zone" by calling him a jackass, Achiam said no. "I don't think that was why he called me that," Achiam testified. "I think he was just upset that I had challenged him." After the meeting, Achiam told the jury that some colleagues expressed gratitude to him for standing up to Musk. At the next all-hands meeting, Achiam received a gold statue depicting a jackass with an inscription: "Never stop being a jackass for safety."
