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OpenAI released Elon Musk’s old emails in a blog post on Friday.
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The AI company released its version of the timeline of events amid the legal dispute with Musk.
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In a 2015 email, Musk said that OpenAI’s nonprofit status didn’t seem “good.”
OpenAI responded to co-founder Elon Musk on Friday with a new legal document and pointed to a blog post containing old emails of billionaires in which he pushed for the AI startup to be for-profit.
The emails and file are the latest bombs dropped in the legal dispute between OpenAI and Musk. Last month, Musk asked a federal court to stop OpenAI from moving to a for-profit business. In the past year, Musk has sued OpenAI twice in an attempt to stop the startup from taking over the old business.
In a filing Friday afternoon, OpenAI accused Musk of trying to disrupt the AI startup while promoting its competitor, xAI.
The company detailed its version of events in an article entitled “Elon Musk wanted OpenAI for profit,” saying that the Tesla CEO “not only wanted, but created a profit” feature in 2017.
The emails stand in contrast to Musk’s recent public stance against OpenAI’s transition from a not-for-profit company to a for-profit organization.
Musk did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
In one draft of a November 2015 email, Musk wrote to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that the startup’s non-profit structure “doesn’t look good,” according to the post.
OpenAI wrote in a blog that the company and Musk both agreed that profit was the next step for the startup in the fall of 2017. But when Musk failed to win a large amount, OpenAI accused him of walking away and saying that the company would. “fail.”
Musk left the OpenAI board in 2018, but his lawyers said he would continue to contribute to the company until 2020.
“Now that OpenAI is the leading AI research lab and Elon runs a competing AI company, he is asking the court to stop us from doing our job properly,” OpenAI wrote this week.
Musk announced xAI, his competitor to OpenAI, last year and has since released the Grok chatbot.
OpenAI also released Musk’s private emails in March after Musk sued OpenAI and Altman.
In a November 2015 email published earlier this year, Musk said the company should say it was starting with a $1 billion funding commitment, promising to cover “anyone who doesn’t contribute.”
OpenAI also accused Musk at the time of wanting to start a merger with Tesla and being a “cash cow”.