Tuesday, a report on Tesla Inc. TSLA machine learning scientist Ethan Knight becoming the third engineer to leave the electric vehicle giant and join xAI has emerged. This came just hours after Elon Musk revealed it ChatGPT-parent OpenAI is targeting many Tesla engineers.
What happened: Last year, Musk launched his latest venture, xAI, which seeks to “understand the true nature of the universe.” Since then, he has battled with several major tech players and startups for AI talent.
According to The Information’s report, the tech billionaire has managed to keep some promising Tesla engineers from leaving by moving them to xAI, with Knight being third on this list.
The tech mogul has now responded to the report, saying Knight would join OpenAI, the company Musk co-founded in 2015 and left in 2018. “So it’s xAI or them.”
He explained that the Sam Altman-led company has “aggressively recruited Tesla engineers with massive compensation offers,” revealing that parent ChatGPT has been successful in some cases.
See also: Elon Musk Reacts to Drastic Price Drop of Old AI Models, Draws Parallels with Google Search, Bing, Coca-Cola and Pepsi
The Tesla CEO also said that while Knight is “very talented,” naming him “vision chief” is inaccurate. “There are over 200 excellent engineers on Tesla’s AI/Autonomy team. The pace of Tesla’s progress in autonomy is accelerating.”
He then said that “the AI talent war is the craziest talent war I’ve ever seen.”
When an ex-Twitter user ‘AI’.
Because it is important: Musk’s statement about OpenAI poaching from Tesla engineers comes in the wake of a legal battle between the tech mogul and the maker of ChatGPT. Last month, Musk sued OpenAI and Altman for allegedly violating the company’s founding agreement.
OpenAI executives later responded by suggesting that Musk’s claims were rooted in his regret at not having been part of the company’s current success. “We believe the claims in this lawsuit may stem from Elon’s regret that he did not engage with the company today,” Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, wrote in an internal memo.
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