Musk tried to recruit Altman to Tesla to build an AI lab
In 2017, Elon Musk planned to create Tesla’s own rival AI lab to strengthen the company’s position. Correspondence disclosed between executives shows that he wa
Revealed messages between Shivon Zilis, president of Neuralink, and Tesla executives show a long-standing and ambitious plan by Elon Musk: to create his own AI laboratory and invite the world's best scientists there. The letters date back to 2017 — a time when Musk was only beginning to realize the scale of changes in artificial intelligence.
Why Musk wanted his own laboratory
In 2017, Musk was already experiencing disappointment with OpenAI. The organization, which he helped found in 2015 as a nonprofit, was increasingly moving away from his vision. Once considered a counterweight to Google DeepMind, the pace of development seemed insufficient to Musk.
Meanwhile, Musk was becoming increasingly immersed in Tesla's affairs and beginning to see enormous potential in AI for autonomous vehicles. Musk realized a simple truth: if he wanted to control the development of AI, he needed his own laboratory. Tesla had three main advantages — financial resources, unique data from millions of drivers around the world, and limitless ambitions.
The revealed letters show that Musk was not just daydreaming publicly. He seriously worked out a concrete plan to attract the world's best scientists to the company and even sketched out candidates.
Who Musk wanted to recruit
There were two main candidates. The first was Sam Altman, who at the time was working at OpenAI. Altman had already gained fame as an experienced manager and strategist, earning a reputation at Y Combinator. The second was Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind and creator of AlphaGo, the system that in 2016 repeatedly defeated the world champion of Go, amazing the whole world. Both were at the absolute peak of their careers and had deep knowledge of how to build large-scale AI systems. Attracting either of them would have given Tesla a huge strategic advantage:
- Practical experience in creating and scaling large AI research systems
- Personal connections with the world's best researchers and the ability to recruit them
- Reputation that automatically attracts funding and PR
- Deep understanding of how to build long-term research organizations
- Ability to directly compete with OpenAI and DeepMind on their own territory
Why nothing worked out
In practice, none of Musk's plans materialized. Altman remained at OpenAI, later becoming its chief executive officer — a position he holds to this day. Hassabis chose DeepMind and Google, where he continues to lead the company.
Musk did not get his man. His attempt to seize leadership in AI through Tesla failed. But this did not stop him.
Musk continued to believe in the necessity of his own AI project and returned to this idea time and again. In the end, years later, in 2023, he launched xAI — a separate company entirely dedicated to the development of artificial intelligence. The Tesla story shows how Musk's thinking works: he can wait, he can replan, but he never gives up on his ideas.
What this means
The revelation of these letters completely overturns the narrative of "coincidental" rivalry between Musk and AI industry leaders. It turns out this is a conflict with deep historical roots, starting not yesterday, not because of loud tweets, and not because of personal grievances. Behind public statements and sharp clashes lie real strategic calculations, long-standing ambitions, and fundamental disagreements about how artificial intelligence should develop.