Recently released court documents show that Musk’s donation to OpenAI was approximately $38 million, not the $100 million he had previously claimed. In court documents filed on Nov. 7, Musk's lawyers said the Tesla CEO has donated more than $38 million to the ChatGPT maker over the years, making him one of the company's most important early backers.
The donations include five quarterly grants of $5 million each in 2016 and 2017, $12.7 million in rent payments for OpenAI between 2016 and 2020, and four factory-new Tesla vehicles given to "key workers."
The news is the latest development in Musk's feud with OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman over the chat software maker's for-profit transition, which it completed last month. Musk sued Altman and the company last year, saying his donation was made on the condition that OpenAI remained a nonprofit serving humanity.
Lawyers for OpenAI asked that the case be dismissed, arguing that most of his donations were indirect, including through donor-advised funds. Musk, who filed the latest documents in an effort to persuade a judge to allow the case to go to trial, said most of his donations were made directly, including "five quarterly grants of $5 million each in 2016 and 2017."
Attached to the document is an email Musk sent to OpenAI co-founders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskvo in 2017, offering them new Tesla vehicles.
Musk wrote in the email: "To thank you for everything you have done to make OpenAI what it is today, I would like to give each of you a Founders Series Model 3. These are the earliest cars produced and are not available to the public."
Musk sent the email from his SpaceX account, asking if he should extend the free car offer to others and mentioning OpenAI co-founder Wojciech Zaremba. Sutskwo responded, "Wow, thank you!" before suggesting that co-founder John Schulman should also get a car.
Musk has previously stated on social platforms that he donated US$100 million to OpenAI. OpenAI believes the figure is less than $45 million.
An OpenAI spokesperson declined to comment on the specific circumstances of Tesla's donations to the founders or others, saying only that Musk's lawsuit was "baseless and a waste of time." The artificial intelligence company also previously released emails stating that Musk had pushed for a merger between OpenAI and Tesla.
Musk believes the case should go to trial because of factual disputes over whether OpenAI and its leaders misled him and misused his charitable donations.