Elon Musk Exits OpenAI Board to Avoid Tesla AI Conflicts
Elon Musk steps down from the board of the AI research nonprofit OpenAI to prevent future conflicts with Tesla's growing focus on artificial intelligence. He remains an advisor and donor to the organization.
Elon Musk leaves the board of OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence research organization that he co-founded in 2015. OpenAI states that this departure eliminates a potential future conflict for Musk as Tesla focuses more heavily on AI technology. Although he vacates his board seat, Musk continues to advise the organization and provides financial donations.
OpenAI operates differently from major tech companies like Google and Facebook because it does not sell any commercial products. Instead, the organization focuses on developing safe AI technology and regularly publishes research papers alongside open-source code for the public. Musk previously warns that artificial intelligence is potentially more dangerous than nuclear weapons, which drives the safety-focused mission of the nonprofit.
This transition allows Musk to dedicate more time to his other ambitious ventures, including SpaceX and Tesla's autonomous vehicle program. Tesla currently faces pressure to deliver on its past promises of fully self-driving cars by 2019, a goal that puts the company in competition with rivals like Waymo and Cruise. Giving up the two percent of his time previously spent on OpenAI gives Musk more bandwidth to tackle these challenging technological hurdles.