Anthropic explored a potential merger with artificial intelligence rival OpenAI in the immediate aftermath of Sam Altman’s brief ousting as OpenAI’s CEO two years ago, newly released court documents reveal.
Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI cofounder and the company’s former chief scientist, detailed the merger talks in a recent deposition taken as part of Elon Musk’s ongoing legal battle with Altman and OpenAI related to the firm’s restructuring.
During Sutskever’s 10-hour deposition in San Francisco last month, he informed attorneys about a November 2023 proposal for the ChatGPT maker to join forces with Anthropic. That proposal would have seen Anthropic take over OpenAI’s leadership, Sutskever said, adding that he was not happy about it.
Representatives for OpenAI and Anthropic did not immediately return Business requests for comment from Business Insider on Monday. An attorney for Sutskever declined to comment.
In his deposition, Sutskever said that after OpenAI’s board fired Altman, there was a call about the possible merger between board members and Anthropic brass, including CEO Dario Amodei and his sister, Anthropic president Daniela Amodei.
“I recall Anthropic expressing their excitement about it and expressing the issue — the practical challenges that they would have with it,” Sutskever said during the deposition, according to court documents viewed by Business Insider.
Sutskever, who at the time was on OpenAI’s board, said in his deposition that he was “very unhappy” about the idea of merging operations with Anthropic and “really did not” want to see it happen.
He was largely an outlier in that view among the other board members, he said during the interview.
“They were a lot more supportive, yes,” Sutskever said, adding that then-board member Helen Toner was the “most supportive” about the proposal on OpenAI’s board. “I think — at the very least, none were unsupportive.”
The merger discussions, which Sutskever said lasted “extremely briefly,” ultimately petered out, he said.
“My recollection is that there were some practical obstacles that Anthropic has raised, and so the proposal did not continue,” Sutskever said.
While under questioning by an OpenAI attorney, Sutskever said he did not know what those obstacles were.
Altman, who co-founded OpenAI alongside Sutskever and Musk in 2015, was reinstated as CEO days after his ousting.
Sutskever faced questioning during the October 1st deposition by lawyers for OpenAI and Musk.
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Meanwhile, Sutskever has been ordered by the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit to sit for a second deposition before Musk’s attorneys. During that second deposition, Sutskever will have to elaborate on his financial interest in OpenAI and describe the confidential, so-called “Brockman memo,” in which OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman described Altman’s 2023 ouster as CEO.
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Musk sued Altman and OpenAI in a California federal court last year, accusing Altman of betraying OpenAI’s founding mission as a nonprofit research lab dedicated to keeping AI technology safe and freely available for the good of mankind.
The lawsuit — which alleges OpenAI and its backer, Microsoft, violated antitrust laws by asking investors not to fund competing AI firms such as Musk’s own xAI — also accuses Altman and other OpenAI executives of deceiving Musk into cofounding the company.
OpenAI countersued Musk earlier this year, accusing him of a “years-long campaign of harassment.”
Musk and Altman’s bitter feud continues to spill over outside the courtroom.
In the latest twist to the saga, the billionaire tech leaders traded jabs on X, Musk’s social media platform, over the weekend.
“You stole a non-profit,” the Tesla CEO said in a post on Saturday in response to a post from Altman about trying to cancel an order for a Tesla Roadster.
Altman later replied, “i helped turn the thing you left for dead into what should be the largest non-profit ever.”
“you know as well as anyone a structure like what openai has now is required to make that happen,” Altman added.
OpenAI announced last month that it completed its restructuring into a for-profit public benefit corporation.
