In 2018, Elon Musk resigned from OpenAI’s board citing a conflict of interest with his work at Tesla.
This was due to the developments in artificial intelligence being carried out in Tesla’s autonomous driving project.
OpenAI is a non-profit research laboratory focused on artificial intelligence. It was founded in 2015 by Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and other investors. The goal of OpenAI is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole.
At the time of his resignation, Musk said that Tesla’s work on artificial intelligence was “diverging from the mission of OpenAI.” He also noted that he would remain an advisor to OpenAI and continue to donate to the organization.
Since then, OpenAI has continued to pursue its mission of advancing artificial intelligence. In 2019, the organization announced a partnership with Microsoft to develop new AI technologies. In 2020, OpenAI launched its OpenAI GPT-3 language model, which is one of the most advanced AI language models in the world.
Despite leaving OpenAI’s board, Musk has continued to be involved in the organization. In 2020, he donated $10 million to OpenAI to support its research into artificial general intelligence.
Overall, Musk’s decision to leave OpenAI’s board was motivated by a conflict of interest with his work at Tesla. However, he has remained involved with the organization and continues to support its mission.