Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, speaks during the Milken Conference 2024 Global Conference Session at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, USA, May 6, 2024.
David Swanson | Reuters
Elon Musk Tesla SpaceX threatened to ban it apple The company said on Monday it would sell its devices after the iPhone maker announced a partnership with OpenAI.
In a series of posts on his social media platform, X, Musk expressed concerns about whether Apple and OpenAI would protect user information.
He called the software integration between the two companies an “unacceptable security breach” and said Apple “has no idea what’s really going on.”
Apple on Monday announced a long-awaited push into artificial intelligence, which included an update to its voice assistant, Siri. As part of the update, Siri will have access to ChatGPT, a popular chatbot from OpenAI. Apple said users will be asked for permission to share their questions with ChatGPT, and that no requests or information will be logged.
“It is patently absurd that Apple can guarantee that OpenAI will protect users’ security and privacy when they are not smart enough to develop their own AI!” Musk wrote after the event.
Specifically, he mentioned Apple’s operating system, saying that if the company “integrates OpenAI at the OS level,” Apple devices would be banned.
Apple told CNBC that it uses its own AI and that the integration with OpenAI is an optional feature.
Musk responded directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook’s post, claiming that he would ban Apple devices from his company’s campus unless Cook decided to “stop this creepy spyware,” adding that his company would require visitors to leave their Apple devices at the entrance.
Tesla, Musk’s largest company, employed 140,473 people worldwide as of Dec. 31. The company has cut more than 10% of its workforce this year.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and stepped down from the company’s board of directors in 2018. He has been a vocal critic of the company and its CEO, Sam Altman, in recent days. In March, Musk sued OpenAI, Altman and others, alleging that the company had abandoned its original mission of developing AI “for the broad benefit of humanity.”
Musk raised $6 billion in a recent funding round for xAI, an OpenAI competitor. xAI’s first product, Grok, aims to be a politically incorrect answer to ChatGPT. In addition to Tesla, SpaceX and xAI, Musk is also the founder of brain-interface startup Neuralink and tunnel-boring venture Boring Company.
Musk and OpenAI did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
—CNBC’s Steve Kovach and Laura Kolodny contributed to this report.
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