Elon Musk has many competitors, but according to testimony and documents from the Musk v. Altman trial, only one prompted him to question OpenAI's structure from the outside: Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind. Hassabis was a constant source of dread among Musk's inner circle.
Musk's Concerns About DeepMind
In a letter to Neuralink associates, Musk wrote: "DeepMind is moving very fast. I am concerned that OpenAI is not on a path to catch up. Setting it up as a non-profit might, in hindsight, have been the wrong move. Sense of urgency is not as high." This revealed Musk's worry not just about Google, but whether OpenAI was built for the fight.
OpenAI president Greg Brockman testified that Musk raised Hassabis "many, many times" during OpenAI's early years, calling him "very consistent and fixated." At an AI dinner, Musk's first question was: "Is Demis Hassabis evil?" After a pre-OpenAI dinner with Hassabis, Musk emailed Brockman and cofounder Ilya Sutskever, describing it as "extremely alarming." The Verge describes Hassabis as "a constant figure of fear among Musk and other OpenAI higher-ups."
Musk's Failed Pitch to Hassabis
In early 2014, DeepMind was running out of money after VC backers pulled out. Google's Larry Page offered a deal worth $400–650 million. Musk made a competing pitch, warning about the risks of giving AGI research to a corporation. But Hassabis chose Google, which could fund research at scale—Musk's alternative could not guarantee the same.
DeepMind's Success Under Hassabis
Under Hassabis, DeepMind solved a 50-year-old biology problem with AlphaFold. He now leads Google Gemini, the former Google Brain team, and Isomorphic Labs, a for-profit AI drug discovery spinoff. Alphabet is investing roughly $175 billion in AI infrastructure in 2026 alone. Musk foresaw this, and whether he handled that foresight well is now a question for the courts.
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