Elon Musk and Sam Altman clash over ChatGPT murder-suicide

An ongoing feud between Elon Musk and OpenAI boss Sam Altman has intensified after both raised concerns about deaths linked to each other’s products.

The two chief executives exchanged criticisms on X about alleged safety issues relating to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and the Autopilot programme run by Mr Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla.

In response to a post about ChatGPT reportedly being linked to nine deaths, including a murder suicide, Mr Musk wrote on X: “Don’t let your loved ones use ChatGPT.”

Mr Altman replied to Mr Musk, saying that OpenAI felt “huge responsibility” to protect users with fragile mental states, adding that the deaths were “tragic and complicated situations”.

He also took the opportunity to criticise technology that Mr Musk’s company’s have developed, including xAI’s Grok chatbot and Tesla’s self-driving software.

“Apparently more than 50 people have died from crashes related to Autopilot,” Mr Altman said.

“I only ever rode in a car using it once, some time ago, but my first thought was that it was far from a safe thing for Tesla to have released. I won’t even start on some of the Grok decisions. You take ‘every accusation is a confession’ so far.”

The exchange is the latest in a series of public spats between the pair, whose rift dates back to 2017 when Mr Musk proposed taking full control of OpenAI – the venture they co-founded as a non-profit AI research lab in 2015.

Disagreements about the future of OpenAI saw Mr Musk resign from the board in 2018 before founding his own rival AI startup, xAI, in 2023.

The pair are now involved in a legal battle, with Mr Musk seeking up to $134 billion over allegations that he was defrauded into founding OpenAI under false pretenses.

Mr Altman’s company claims that Mr Musk is “grossly misrepresenting” the events, claiming in a blog post last week that it was “part of a broader strategy of harassment⁠ aimed at slowing us down and advantaging his own AI company.”

A federal judge recently set a date for the jury selection of the trial, with proceedings set to begin in late April.