Elon Musk
In plain wordsA South African-born American entrepreneur who runs Tesla and SpaceX, co-founded OpenAI, founded the AI company xAI, and has long warned that AI could endanger humanity.
South African-born American entrepreneur, chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX. He has warned since at least 2014 that advanced AI could pose an existential riskexistential risk, n.: A danger that could end humanity, or shut it out of a good future forever. Some experts count advanced AI among the largest such risks; others think this worry is overblown., gave US$10 million to the Future of Life InstituteFuture of Life Institute, prop. n.: An advocacy group that warns about the dangers of advanced AI and other powerful technologies, funds research and lobbies governments. It organized the 2023 open letter calling for a pause on giant AI experiments. in 2015 for AI-safety research, and signed the 2023 'Pause Giant AI ExperimentsPause Giant AI Experiments, prop. n.: A 2023 open letter, signed by tens of thousands of people including prominent technologists, that asked AI labs to halt the training of any AI more capable than GPT-4 for at least half a year.' letter. He co-founded OpenAIOpenAI, prop. n.: The American company that makes ChatGPT and the GPT models. It began in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab and is now a for-profit company overseen by a nonprofit foundation. in 2015 as co-chair and a major donor, left its board in 2018, and in 2024 sued it and Sam AltmanSam Altman, prop. n.: An American entrepreneur who co-founded OpenAI and runs it; the company's 2022 release of ChatGPT turned him into one of the public faces of the AI era. for abandoning its nonprofit mission; in May 2026 a jury found the claims were filed too late, and he said he would appeal. In 2023 he founded xAIxAI, prop. n.: An artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk in 2023 that makes the Grok chatbot. It is now part of Musk's rocket company, SpaceX., which develops the Grok chatbot and built the Colossus supercomputer in Memphis; xAI acquired the social network X in 2025 and was itself acquired by SpaceX in February 2026. Tesla develops camera-based self-driving software and the humanoid robot Optimus, and he co-founded the brain–computer interface company Neuralink (2016).
Related
- xAIxAI, prop. n.: An artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk in 2023 that makes the Grok chatbot. It is now part of Musk's rocket company, SpaceX.
- OpenAIOpenAI, prop. n.: The American company that makes ChatGPT and the GPT models. It began in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab and is now a for-profit company overseen by a nonprofit foundation.
- Sam AltmanSam Altman, prop. n.: An American entrepreneur who co-founded OpenAI and runs it; the company's 2022 release of ChatGPT turned him into one of the public faces of the AI era.
- existential riskexistential risk, n.: A danger that could end humanity, or shut it out of a good future forever. Some experts count advanced AI among the largest such risks; others think this worry is overblown.
- Pause Giant AI ExperimentsPause Giant AI Experiments, prop. n.: A 2023 open letter, signed by tens of thousands of people including prominent technologists, that asked AI labs to halt the training of any AI more capable than GPT-4 for at least half a year.
- humanoid robothumanoid robot, n.: A robot built roughly in human shape, with a head, torso, two arms and usually two legs, so that it can work in spaces and with tools designed for people.
- autonomous vehicleautonomous vehicle, n.: A vehicle, usually a car, truck or shuttle, that can drive itself, sensing the road, deciding what to do and steering, braking and accelerating with no human driving.
Mentioned in
Sam AltmanSam Altman, prop. n.: An American entrepreneur who co-founded OpenAI and runs it; the company's 2022 release of ChatGPT turned him into one of the public faces of the AI era., xAIxAI, prop. n.: An artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk in 2023 that makes the Grok chatbot. It is now part of Musk's rocket company, SpaceX., GrokGrok, prop. n.: The AI chatbot and model family of Elon Musk's company xAI, launched in 2023 and built into the social network X. It is known for its irreverent style and for repeated controversies over its outputs., Max TegmarkMax Tegmark, prop. n.: A Swedish-American physicist at MIT who co-founded the Future of Life Institute, which organized the 2023 open letter calling for a pause in training the most powerful AI systems., Pause Giant AI ExperimentsPause Giant AI Experiments, prop. n.: A 2023 open letter, signed by tens of thousands of people including prominent technologists, that asked AI labs to halt the training of any AI more capable than GPT-4 for at least half a year., TeslaTesla, prop. n.: The American electric-car company led by Elon Musk, whose driver-assistance software, robotaxis and humanoid robot make it a major, and controversial, developer of AI., Greg BrockmanGreg Brockman, prop. n.: An American engineer who helped start OpenAI in 2015 and became its president, after serving as the first technology chief of the payments company Stripe., Open Letter on Artificial IntelligenceOpen Letter on Artificial Intelligence, prop. n.: A 2015 open letter, signed by Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and many leading AI researchers, urging that AI research aim not only at making systems more capable but also at making them safe and beneficial.