By TOI Tech Desk
Publication Date: 2026-01-09 10:35:00
Elon Musk has revealed what pushed him to establish OpenAI. He said that the foundation of the AI company was spurred by ‘a philosophical clash’ with Google co-founder Larry Page who, the Tesla CEO says, was on the side of computers. In an video interview, which is now making rounds on the internet, Musk recounted a conversation during his birthday party where Page reportedly called him a “speciesist” – a term used to describe someone who favours the survival of the human species over that of digital superintelligence.“The reason I founded OpenAI was because I was concerned, based on my conversations with Larry Page, that he was not sufficiently concerned about the dangers of AI. At my birthday party, he, in front of a large group of people, called me a speciesist, for favoring humanity over computers,” he said in the video, adding, “So after that, I was like, We got to have some counterbalance to Google, because Larry doesn’t seem to care if humans make it or…
