ChatGPT; what is Elon Musk’s link to OpenAI and did the Twitter CEO ever own the property?

Like it or not, artificial intelligence is becoming more of a topic of conversation in everyday life rather than just those within the technological community. Tales of lawsuits being filed against OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT chatbot and professionals using it to write up documents have permeated mainstream publications over the last year. 

But does Elon Musk, current CEO of Twitter and figurehead of both Tesla and SpaceX, have any involvement with the creation of ChatGPT and its artificial intelligence research laboratory, OpenAI? That question naturally leads to another one - does Elon Musk own, or has he ever owned, OpenAI and ChatGPT?

Try as he might have done previously, the tech billionaire does not own OpenAI nor ChatGPT, though he was crucial still to its development. Musk sank an estimated $100 million USD in its initial funding - the largest amount the project received upon its initial financing. 

He joined Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Infosys, and YC Research in announcing the launch of Open AI in December 2015 and acted as a board member, until stepping away from his position in 2018, citing "a potential future conflict [of interest]" with his role as CEO of Tesla due to Tesla's AI development for self-driving cars as the reason, according to The Verge.

His reasons for stepping down however have been a point of contention between himself and current CEO, Sam Altman, who believed that Musk’s resignation from the board had more to do with his thoughts that OpenAI was lagging behind Google in terms of a big industry player.

At that point, Musk suggested that perhaps he should take over the running of OpenAI and ChatGPT, a suggestion that the board voted against, leading to Musk stepping down from his position.

Who is the CEO of OpenAI?

Sam Altman is currently the CEO of OpenAI, and made his name initially as the co-founder of Loopt, a location-based social networking mobile application, where he served as CEO and raised substantial venture capital for the company. Later, he became involved with Y Combinator, initially as a partner and eventually as its president. He also was, very briefly, the CEO of Reddit - for a whole eight days in 2014.

Altman played a significant role in the growth and valuation of Y Combinator companies, such as Airbnb, Dropbox, Zenefits, and Stripe. He also spearheaded initiatives like YC Continuity, a fund for mature YC companies, and Y Combinator Research, a non-profit research lab.

Outside of his technological endeavours, Altman has been involved in philanthropy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he played a role in creating Project Covalence, which facilitated clinical trials in partnership with TrialSpark. Altman has also expressed opinions on artificial intelligence, highlighting its potential for improving quality of life while acknowledging the need for safety measures and international coordination.

Altman's achievements and influence have garnered recognition over the years. He was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2023 and has been featured on Forbes' list of top investors under 30.