Musk and Altman’s AI rivalry reaches boiling point as IPO race heats up

As SpaceX and OpenAI race toward IPOs, a tiny circle of tech leaders tightens its grip on AI’s future Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian. Let’s recap a whirlwind five days that may determine the future of AI. Control over artificial intelligence is concentrated in the hands of a tiny group of people. And those people are obsessed with each other. Sam Altman and Elon Musk are engaged in a contest of one-upsmanship with stakes in the trillions of dollars, and the heated rivalry was on full display last week. On Monday, Musk lost his lawsuit against Altman, with whom he cofounded OpenAI in 2015. A federal jury in Oakland, California, found Altman, OpenAI and its president, Greg Brockman, not liable for Musk’s claims that they unjustly enriched themselves and broke a founding contract made with Musk when founding the startup. The verdict, delivered after less than two hours of deliberation, is a stark rebuke of Musk and his lawyer’s claims that Altman “stole a charity” through his leadership of OpenAI. It also provides OpenAI with a clear path ahead to pursue going public later this year at about a $1tn valuati