--- title: "Elon Musk Quits Research Group That Built “Fake News” Generator" description: "This weekend, Elon Musk took to Twitter to confirm that he'd left the research group OpenAI — citing disagreements with the group's direction." date: "2019-02-18" modified: "2019-02-18" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-quits-research-group" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "artificial intelligence" - "elon musk" - "OpenAI" - "the digest" --- # Elon Musk Quits Research Group That Built “Fake News” Generator ![This weekend, Elon Musk took to Twitter to confirm that he'd left the research group OpenAI — citing disagreements with the group's direction.]() *\Image: MICHAEL KOVAC/GETTY IMAGES/VICTOR TANGERMANN\* ## Research Group These days, Elon Musk is probably best known for his work on SpaceX and Tesla. But along the way, he also teamed up with Y Combinator president Sam Altman to co-found OpenAI, a research group dedicated to building AI that benefits humanity. But this weekend, Musk [took to Twitter]() to confirm that he'd left the organization — citing disagreements with the group's direction. ## Fake News OpenAI made headlines last week when it released a research paper detailing a new AI that can generate surprisingly realistic text snippets — but opted not to released the fully trained model out of fear that it could be used to populate the web with passably-written "fake news." "I didn't agree with some of what \[the\] OpenAI team wanted to do," Musk [tweeted Saturday](), adding that "it was just better to part ways on good terms." ## Not Forgotten It's not clear whether Musk is retaining any involvement with OpenAI going forward, but he confirmed that he no longer had any management or board oversight. That's striking, because Musk has [been outspoken]() about his fear of powerful AI — but it's likely that the decision for Musk, who spreads himself thin over several ambitious ventures, was more about time management than ideology. "I had to focus on solving a painfully large number of engineering \[and\] manufacturing problems at Tesla (especially) \[and\] SpaceX," he wrote in [a tweet]() explaining his departure from OpenAI. **READ MORE:** [Elon Musk Left OpenAI to Focus on Tesla, SpaceX]() \[*Bloomberg*\] ***More on Elon Musk:*** [Elon Musk Wanders Tesla Factory, Firing Workers in Wild Mood Swings]() ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()