Altman Counters Musk: "Using Power to Harm Competitors Is Not Right"..."A Mega Hero" Praise Included

As Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, is increasingly seen as potentially using his growing political influence to attack industry competitors, OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman has preemptively fired a warning shot.

At the New York Times' DealBook Conference on the 4th (local time), Altman responded to a question about whether Musk might use his close relationship with President-elect Donald Trump to harm OpenAI by saying, "I firmly believe Elon will do the right thing." He then emphasized that "using political power to harm competitors and advantage one's own business is very un-American." This can be interpreted as an indirect warning that such actions would be criticized by Americans if Musk were to actually attempt them.

Musk has recently been expanding a lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI, creating a heightened confrontational atmosphere. Altman described this situation as "deeply sad." Interestingly, he also praised Musk, stating, "I grew up with Elon, and he was like a mega hero to me."

Previously, Musk filed a lawsuit in late February, claiming that OpenAI's founders, including Altman, broke their original promise to develop AI technology for humanity's benefit by subsequently pursuing commercial interests. In a revised lawsuit filing last month, he alleged that OpenAI and its investor Microsoft are using a monopolistic position to obstruct competition in the AI field.

Musk was an original co-founder of OpenAI but resigned from the board in 2018 and divested all his investment shares. After OpenAI launched ChatGPT, Musk criticized the chatbot as politically biased and launched his own AI startup xAI in July, developing the AI chatbot 'Grok' as a potential competitor.

At the end of last month, Musk and xAI also filed an injunction requesting the court to halt OpenAI's ongoing transition to a for-profit entity.