A Strong Bond That Faded Over Time
Larry Page and Elon Musk used to be very close friends and were even included in the prestigious Best Friends Forever list of Fortune magazine in 2016. Although they were strongly connected, they started to drift apart. Musk talked about this matter recently while being a guest on a podcast, explaining their different opinions on the AI were the main cause of the ruptured relationship.
The Disagreement Over AI Led To The Breakup
Musk clarified that they disagreed over the way AI should be made. Page, in particular, was disillusioned at the time when OpenAI, the company which Musk co-founded in 2015 with Sam Altman, brought in Ilya Sutskever, a Google AI expert. At that time, Page felt it was a betrayal on the part of Musk. Musk, however, stood by his choice and said that his main concern was the safety of AI which was not taken seriously by Page.
Musk left OpenAI in 2018, as he felt it was inappropriate for him to remain there when the company was now working on AI for cars which could possibly lead to a conflict of interest with his role at Tesla. As opposed to that, Sam Altman mentioned that Musk left the company after the board rejected his proposal of taking charge of OpenAI.
Another Possible Dispute with Sergey Brin
Besides the conflict, he was linked to Larry Page, the other Google co-founder of the great Google, Sergey Brin. The reports had a concept that Musk had a romantic affair with the ex-wife of the second co-founder, Nicole Shanahan, and that could be the reason behind the collapse of the friendship. Nonetheless, Musk repudiated the speculation outright by saying, “Sergey and I are good friends. We even attended a party together. I’ve only met Nicole twice in three years, both times in public settings. Nothing romantic happened.”
Before long, it had been rumored that Musk and Brin had been friends for a long time. Brin was on the list of the early-birds who bought a Tesla car and he was even a patron of Musk when the financial situation of Tesla got worse during the 2008 recession.
