Quoting Sam Altman
Simon Willison · Simon Willison · 2026-07-20
A 2022 email from Sam Altman to OpenAI's board, exposed in the Musk v. Altman lawsuit, reveals OpenAI considered releasing a GPT-3-level open-source model primarily to undercut competitors and dry up funding for rival AI projects.
Extraction
Topics: openai-strategyopen-source-aicompetitive-strategylegal-disclosurellm-release
Claims
- In October 2022, Sam Altman proposed to OpenAI's board releasing a GPT-3-class model that could run locally on consumer hardware.
- OpenAI's internal motivation for this open-source release was to discourage competitors from releasing similarly powerful models, not to advance openness.
- Altman believed releasing a strong open model would make it harder for new AI efforts to secure funding.
- This email was surfaced publicly through the Musk v. Altman litigation in 2026, revealing a gap between OpenAI's public and private reasoning.
Key quotes
We think this helps discourage others from releasing similarly-powerful models, and makes it harder for new efforts to get funded.
We'd like to do it soon, before Stability or someone else does.