Altman Faces Off with Musk: "OpenAI Launches SNS Business Entry"

Altman Targets Musk's X with "ChatGPT-Linked SNS in Development"
Possibility of Intensified Conflict with Musk... Also Competing with Zuckerberg's Meta

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, who is in conflict with Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of the social networking service X (formerly Twitter), is reportedly developing an SNS platform that can directly compete with X.

According to IT media The Verge on the 15th (local time), OpenAI is internally testing a platform equipped with SNS functions that allow users to share images and communicate using ChatGPT's image generation feature.

Sources said that CEO Altman has unofficially requested feedback from external parties regarding this project. However, the project is still in its early stages, and it has not been decided whether OpenAI will release this platform as a separate application (app) or integrate it into ChatGPT.

This move by OpenAI draws attention amid the escalating conflict between CEO Altman and CEO Musk. Last year, Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming that OpenAI violated its promise to operate as a nonprofit organization as ChatGPT gained worldwide popularity, and asked to prevent its conversion into a for-profit corporation. In February, Musk also provoked CEO Altman by proposing to acquire a controlling stake in OpenAI for $97.4 billion through an investor consortium he leads. The price Musk offered was less than one-third of OpenAI's recent valuation of $300 billion.

In response, on the 9th, OpenAI filed a countersuit against CEO Musk in the San Francisco federal court, stating, "CEO Musk has made it his mission to bring down OpenAI. He is using every possible means to harm OpenAI."

OpenAI's entry into the SNS business could form a direct competitive structure not only with CEO Musk but also with Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms (Meta). When it was reported in February that Meta was developing an artificial intelligence (AI) app to compete with ChatGPT, CEO Altman responded on X, "Good. We can make a social app too."

If OpenAI owns its own SNS platform, it will secure proprietary data that can be used to train its AI models, similar to Meta and X. Musk's AI chatbot Grok reflects content from X. Meta is also training its LLaMA model based on its vast user data.