From allies to enemies: Elon Musk and Sam Altman. AFP
From allies to enemies: Elon Musk and Sam Altman. AFP
From allies to enemies: Elon Musk and Sam Altman. AFP
From allies to enemies: Elon Musk and Sam Altman. AFP

Elon Musk’s feud with OpenAI and Sam Altman hits high as battle for AI supremacy heats up


Cody Combs
  • English
  • Arabic

The bad blood between tech tycoons Tesla's Elon Musk and OpenAI's Sam Altman shows no sign of slowing down. Most recently, just as Mr Musk put together a bid to try to buy OpenAI, Mr Altman accused him of being deeply insecure and unhappy.

“I wish he would just compete by building a better product but I think there's been a lot of tactics, many lawsuits and other crazy stuff,” he told Bloomberg, referring to Mr Musk's unsuccessful attempt to buy OpenAI, which Mr Altman and OpenAI's board rejected.

Mr Musk has also tried to sue OpenAI, alleging the company had betrayed its founding principles of being a non-profit organisation that would ensure artificial intelligence would be for the greater good of the world.

Elon Musk and xAI hope that Grok will eventually dethrone OpenAI and ChatGPT. Reuters
Elon Musk and xAI hope that Grok will eventually dethrone OpenAI and ChatGPT. Reuters

“To this day, OpenAI Inc’s website continues to profess that its charter is to ensure that AGI [artificial general intelligence] 'benefits all of humanity',” the lawsuit claimed.

AGI is broadly defined as an advanced form of artificial intelligence capable of performing any intellectual task that a human can do, and its development is hotly pursued in the technology world.

“In reality, however, OpenAI, Inc has been transformed into a closed-source, de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft. Under its new board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximise profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity,” the lawsuit said.

It is unclear when and if Mr Musk's case against OpenAI will go to trial, but the lawsuit is an unwanted distraction for Mr Altman and his company.

While it might seem like a novelty to have two of the business world's most prominent figures trading fire, it is actually a time-honoured tradition. In the race for entrepreneurial dominance, feuds between high-profile inventors, executives and moguls go back more than a century.

Sparks flew amid the innovation of electricity between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. The automotive age gave rise to a bitter feud with no love loss between Henry Ford and Enzo Ferrari.

More recently, the dawn of the personal computer saw Steve Jobs and Bill Gates exchange insults in the press.

The latest barrage of insults between Mr Musk and Mr Altman revolves around the burgeoning AI technology sector, and it stretches back more than a decade, starting with the two men on the same side.

Back in 2017, the two appeared chummy as Mr Altman interviewed Mr Musk for technology start-up accelerator, Y Combinator, where they discussed the importance of the ethical implementation of AI.

At the time, they were both part of OpenAI, a new company on the Silicon Valley scene before AI was on the tip of almost every tongue and dominating global headlines. The company was originally set up as a non-profit research organisation.

According to OpenAI, Mr Musk questioned whether that was the best way to go, but he says he preferred to keep it a non-profit.

On a timeline on OpenAI's website, the company claims that in the autumn of 2017, Mr Musk “demanded majority equity, absolute control and to be chief executive”, with OpenAI operating as a for-profit company. The next year, OpenAI saidit would not give Mr Musk complete control of the company, and that he resigned as co-chairman shortly after.

Long-time technology analyst and consultant Tim Bajarin.
Long-time technology analyst and consultant Tim Bajarin.

At the time, some speculated that Mr Musk left OpenAI to focus on Tesla and Starlink, and to avoid a conflict of interests. Regardless of his motive, he would miss out on the company's introduction of ChatGPT.

“He was high on AI at the time but the priority for him wasn't there,” said Tim Bajarin, a long-time technology consultant and analyst who was chairman for Creative Strategies since 1981.

“But as a result, you know, these are two very egotistical characters, who each one believes they're right and they'll fight to the death, to be honest with you, to prove their position."

Mr Musk's departure from OpenAI's board could easily have fallen into the category of Silicon Valley lore of missed opportunities, especially as OpenAI announced its plan to evolve into a for-profit company.

Mr Musk founded his own for-profit AI company, xAI in 2023. That company, complete with one of the world's largest supercomputers based in Memphis, Tennessee, used Mr Musk's other company he bought, social-media platform X , to create a ChatGPT chatbot competitor called Grok 3.

Meanwhile, by most estimates OpenAI's valuation has reached $157 billion, while xAI's is estimated to have reached $50 billion. Even without other AI start-up competitors such as Anthropic, ScaleAI and Databricks factored in, the sheer amount of investment in the AI sector has underscored the potential wealth these companies can create, and just how high the stakes are for the investors and founders who back them.

Yet even with all the built-in advantages Mr Musk has with xAI, he still faces an uphill battle to unseat OpenAI's ChatGPT, which achieved first-mover advantage, and as a result, has become a household brand.

By any objective standard, for most users xAI still is not on the radar. Given the wealth it might fuel and the market doors it might open in terms of technology influence, the fact that Mr Musk walked away from being in on the ground floor at OpenAI is probably fuelling his desire to disrupt the company's future plans.

But Mr Bajarin says Mr Musk's political endeavours with US President Donald Trump may be chipping away at his focus and overall strategy to distract OpenAI.

“I would say that Musk has become toxic,” he said. "We are seeing protests against Trump, and then we have another set of protests against Musk, and in the valley, especially, there's guys now that have stickers on their on their Tesla that read, 'I bought this before I knew how bad Musk was'."

Mr Bajarin also said that Mr Musk's litigation tactics against OpenAI might prove to be more of a distraction for him in the long-run, and motivation for OpenAI to work harder.

“His lawsuit is supposedly to slow down ChatGPT, and it has had the exact opposite effect. OpenAI is accelerating what they're doing, and Sam Altman has already said that he's got glimpses of what could be AGI by the end of this year. And we've not heard anything like that from Musk.”

Yet even with all the momentum to his back, Mr Altman hasn't avoided taking the occasional shot at Mr Musk when asked about all of his attempted needling of OpenAI.

“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity,” Mr Altman told Bloomberg of Mr Musk's attempts to sue and OpenAI. “I don't think he's a happy person and I feel for him,” he added, before turning away from the topic.

“I just try to think about how we can make our own technology better.”

Meatless Days
Sara Suleri, with an introduction by Kamila Shamsie
​​​​​​​Penguin 

What the law says

Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.

“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.

“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”

If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.

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Brief scoreline:

Wales 1

James 5'

Slovakia 0

Man of the Match: Dan James (Wales)

UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

House-hunting

Top 10 locations for inquiries from US house hunters, according to Rightmove

  1. Edinburgh, Scotland 
  2. Westminster, London 
  3. Camden, London 
  4. Glasgow, Scotland 
  5. Islington, London 
  6. Kensington and Chelsea, London 
  7. Highlands, Scotland 
  8. Argyll and Bute, Scotland 
  9. Fife, Scotland 
  10. Tower Hamlets, London 

 

The five pillars of Islam

1. Fasting 

2. Prayer 

3. Hajj 

4. Shahada 

5. Zakat 

The specs: 2019 Infiniti QX50

Price, base: Dh138,000 (estimate)
Engine: 2.0L, turbocharged, in-line four-cylinder
Transmission: Continuously variable transmission
Power: 268hp @ 5,600rpm
Torque: 380Nm @ 4,400rpm
Fuel economy: 6.7L / 100km (estimate)

Day 1 results:

Open Men (bonus points in brackets)
New Zealand 125 (1) beat UAE 111 (3)
India 111 (4) beat Singapore 75 (0)
South Africa 66 (2) beat Sri Lanka 57 (2)
Australia 126 (4) beat Malaysia -16 (0)

Open Women
New Zealand 64 (2) beat South Africa 57 (2)
England 69 (3) beat UAE 63 (1)
Australia 124 (4) beat UAE 23 (0)
New Zealand 74 (2) beat England 55 (2)

SPECS

Nissan 370z Nismo

Engine: 3.7-litre V6

Transmission: seven-speed automatic

Power: 363hp

Torque: 560Nm

Price: Dh184,500

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

2019 ASIA CUP POTS

Pot 1
UAE, Iran, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia

Pot 2
China, Syria, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Qatar, Thailand

Pot 3
Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Palestine, Oman, India, Vietnam

Pot 4
North Korea, Philippines, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, Turkmenistan

The specs

Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo

Power: 268hp at 5,600rpm

Torque: 380Nm at 4,800rpm

Transmission: CVT auto

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Five famous companies founded by teens

There are numerous success stories of teen businesses that were created in college dorm rooms and other modest circumstances. Below are some of the most recognisable names in the industry:

  1. Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg and his friends started Facebook when he was a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate. 
  2. Dell: When Michael Dell was an undergraduate student at Texas University in 1984, he started upgrading computers for profit. He starting working full-time on his business when he was 19. Eventually, his company became the Dell Computer Corporation and then Dell Inc. 
  3. Subway: Fred DeLuca opened the first Subway restaurant when he was 17. In 1965, Mr DeLuca needed extra money for college, so he decided to open his own business. Peter Buck, a family friend, lent him $1,000 and together, they opened Pete’s Super Submarines. A few years later, the company was rebranded and called Subway. 
  4. Mashable: In 2005, Pete Cashmore created Mashable in Scotland when he was a teenager. The site was then a technology blog. Over the next few decades, Mr Cashmore has turned Mashable into a global media company.
  5. Oculus VR: Palmer Luckey founded Oculus VR in June 2012, when he was 19. In August that year, Oculus launched its Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $1 million in three days. Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion two years later.
Scoreline

Syria 1-1 Australia

Syria Al Somah 85'

Australia Kruse 40'

Updated: February 21, 2025, 5:59 AM`