Musk criticises OpenAI's exclusive funding terms

Says ‘OpenAI is evil’

Elon Musk has criticised OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company he co-founded, after it completed a historic funding round of $6.6 billion.

The latest investment brings OpenAI’s valuation to a staggering $157 billion, securing its position as the most valuable startup in the world.

The round, which attracted high-profile investors such as Thrive Capital, Microsoft and Nvidia, included a controversial stipulation that has drawn Musk's ire: a condition asking investors not to back OpenAI’s direct competitors. Sources close to the matter, as reported by Reuters, revealed that OpenAI requested an exclusive agreement from its backers to refrain from funding five specific competitors.

According to the report, the companies named in this arrangement include Perplexity, Glean, Anthropic, Safe Superintelligence (led by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever), and Musk’s own xAI, the developer of the Grok AI system.

The Financial Times also confirmed reports of OpenAI seeking exclusivity in this funding round.

In response, Musk took to X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday, expressing his discontent by posting "OpenAI is evil" in reply to posts criticising the company’s move.

Musk's relationship with OpenAI has become increasingly fractious since his departure from the company in 2018.

In 2020, Musk publicly denounced OpenAI for what he saw as a lack of transparency and safety measures. Earlier this year, in March, he accused the company of abandoning its original mission to build AI systems for the benefit of humanity, a claim made in a lawsuit that he later withdrew.

August saw another legal challenge from Musk, this time alleging that he was misled into co-founding the company.

While such requests for exclusive investment agreements are rare, they are not unheard of.