Friday, August 14, 2026
Facts you can rely on·101 entities·4,806 sourced facts
Source trace. Via News points to the documents behind its reporting and shows what we drew from each — so you can check any claim. How we source
Source document· May 12, 2026

Altman Testifies About ‘Hair-Raising’ AI Safety Chat With Musk

View original at finance.yahoo.com
Altman Testifies About ‘Hair-Raising’ AI Safety Chat With Musk (Bloomberg) -- OpenAI’s Sam Altman testified that he was “extremely uncomfortable” with Elon Musk’s insistence that he have complete control over a proposed for-profit subsidiary of OpenAI back in 2017…
Opening lines of the source · short snapshot — read the full document at the original

What we drew from this source

The claims Via News extracted from this document. We point to the source; we don't replace it.

  • Musk began losing confidence in Altman and Brockman during the 2017 negotiations and believed his equity should reflect his status as the biggest financial backer

    60% confidence
  • Musk accused Altman and Brockman of seeking to enrich themselves by abandoning the nonprofit's altruistic mission and converting it into a for-profit company with billions in Microsoft investment

    60% confidence
  • Altman does not currently have a direct equity stake in OpenAI

    60% confidence
  • Altman contributed $3.75 million to the nonprofit when it first started, and then gave a multiple of that in equity interests to early employees

    60% confidence
  • Musk gave OpenAI roughly $38 million in the form of quarterly donations and rent payments, far less than his initial $1 billion pledge

    60% confidence
  • Altman was extremely uncomfortable with Musk's insistence on having complete control over the proposed for-profit subsidiary

    60% confidence
  • Musk was unwilling to sign a contract limiting his control to the early days of the for-profit entity despite claiming that was all he wanted

    60% confidence
  • Altman felt frustrated that co-founders' time and effort contributions to launching OpenAI were not reflected in Musk's equity split proposals

    60% confidence
  • When co-founders asked Musk what would happen to his control upon his death, Musk said he had not thought about it much but might pass it to his children

    60% confidence

Data points we hold from this source

Elon Musk · cash38 USD
Altman Testifies About ‘Hair-Raising’ AI Safety Chat With Musk — Source | Via News | Via News