Elon Musk tried to hire OpenAI founders to start AI unit inside Tesla

Here’s a wild one — back in 2018, Elon Musk actually tried to snag OpenAI’s founding team, including Sam Altman, to run a new AI division inside Tesla. According to George Hammond from the Financial Times, Musk saw an opportunity to bring the OpenAI leaders — Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever — on board, even floated making OpenAI a Tesla subsidiary or putting Altman on the board. But here’s where it gets tense — this was all happening during a high-stakes trial, where Musk claimed Altman ‘stole a charity’ by turning OpenAI into a for-profit. Hammond points out that OpenAI’s lawyers argued Musk was totally fine with monetizing the lab, as long as he stayed in charge. So what does this mean? Musk’s real plan might’ve been to keep control, blending corporate ambitions with cutting-edge AI. If this pattern holds, the future of AI development will be shaped by those willing to blend profit and control — making the next big moves in tech even more unpredictable.