Musk relitigates old Larry Page friendship at OpenAI trial
Original: At his OpenAI trial, Musk relitigates an old friendship
Why This Matters
Reveals personal motivations behind OpenAI's founding and ongoing AI safety debates
Elon Musk testified under oath Tuesday about his falling-out with Google's Larry Page over AI safety, claiming Page called him 'speciest' for being 'pro human' and dismissed AI wiping out humanity as 'fine'.
During testimony in his lawsuit against OpenAI, Musk revealed that a core motivation for co-founding the company was his deteriorating friendship with Google's Larry Page. Musk testified that Page dismissed concerns about AI potentially wiping out humanity, calling such outcomes 'fine' as long as AI survived, and labeled Musk 'speciest' for being 'pro human.' The two were once close friends - Fortune listed them as secretly best-friend business leaders in 2016, and Musk regularly stayed at Page's Palo Alto home. Their friendship ended when Musk recruited Google AI researcher Ilya Sutskever to help launch OpenAI in 2015, which Page viewed as a personal betrayal. This marked the first time Musk made these claims under oath, though he previously shared the story with biographer Walter Isaacson.