Barry Brecheisen/WireImage and Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
- Elon Musk said Larry Page hasn't spoken to him in years after they disagreed about AI safety.
- Musk said Page wanted to create a "digital god" and accused him of being a speciesist.
- The Tesla CEO became friends with the Google cofounder during the electric-car maker's early days.
Elon Musk said his longtime friendship with Google cofounder Larry Page ended over a disagreement about AI and that the two men haven't talked in years.
The Tesla CEO said Page "got very upset with me about OpenAI" — the company Musk helped found as a competitor to Google's AI efforts.
"When OpenAI was created, it did shift things from a unipolar world where Google's DeepMind controlled like three quarters of all AI talent to where there is now sort of a bipolar world of OpenAI and Google DeepMind," Musk told Fox News host Tucker Carlson during an interview that aired on Tuesday. "Now we're at least seeing OpenAI is maybe ahead."
Musk said that he hasn't been able to talk with Page "because he doesn't want to talk to me anymore."
Musk's relationship with Page dates back to Tesla's early days when he took Page and Google's other cofounder Sergey Brin on a test drive. Both Page and Brin invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Tesla, and the three men used to hang out in a Google-owned apartment to brainstorm futuristic tech ideas, Vice reported in 2015.
In 2014, Page said that he'd rather leave his money to Musk than give it away to charity. He's also said in the past that Musk used to sleep at his house when he visited Los Angeles.
Musk told Carlson that he and Page have different views on artificial intelligence, saying he thinks Page believes that "all consciousness should be treated equally, whether that is digital or biological."
During a segment of the interview that aired on Monday's episode of "Tonight with Tucker Carlson," Musk said the two men would "talk late into the night" about AI safety and his "perception was that Larry was not taking AI safety seriously enough."
He wanted to created "digital superintelligence, basically digital god," Musk said. The Tesla CEO said it was "the last straw" when Page called him a "speciesist" for wanting to implement safeguards to protect humanity from AI. A speciesist is a term for an individual who believes all other living beings are inferior to humans.
Musk said his disagreement with Page ultimately motivated him to help found OpenAI. Though he left the company in 2018 and has been critical of it ever since.
Most recently, Musk announced that he plans to create a "maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe."
Musk is one of many tech executives to call for AI regulation. Last month, he and several tech experts, including Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, signed an open letter calling for a pause in AI development and warning of an "out-of-control" race for tech companies to deploy the technology. On Tuesday, the billionaire said the government needs "some sort of contingency plan" to shut down AI if it gets out of hand.
Spokespeople for Google and Page did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.
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