Elon Musk Cryptically Said Humanity’s Future Was Controlled by [Redacted]

Redact This

In a cache of emails it leaked, OpenAI has revealed a lot about cofounder Elon Musk's thoughts about monetizing artificial intelligence — and one redacted exchange in particular is raising eyebrows.

Sent in late 2018, which was per the company's stated timeline months after Musk left the firm due to disagreements about monetization, the email sees the multi-hyphenate billionaire browbeating fellow co-founders Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever for not trying to raise money his way.

"My probability assessment of OpenAI being relevant to DeepMind/Google without a dramatic change in execution and resources is 0%. Not 1%," Musk wrote. "I wish it were otherwise."

"Unfortunately," he continued, "humanity's future is in the hands of [REDACTED]."

After another completely redacted sentence, Musk adds that "they," whoever they are, "are doing a lot more than this."

Two more redacted lines and the Tesla and SpaceX owner adds that he "really hope[s]" he's wrong and signs off, leaving those of us reading the censored versions of the exchange to speculate about who, exactly, he was talking about.

Hybrid Theories

The obvious answer, as folks on Reddit pointed out, is either "Google," "Demis" or "Larry," referencing DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis or former Google CEO and erstwhile Musk friend Larry Page — both of whom have made public and private comments about how AI will impact humanity and its future.

Though Musk has sparred plenty with Page, don't discount Hassabis as a candidate. In 2018, not only was OpenAI years away from being the foremost player in the AI game that it's become with Microsoft's investments, but DeepMind — which was acquired by Google in 2014 — was making some of the biggest advancements in the game.

A dark horse guess: Musk and his fellow OpenAI co-founders were also on first-name basis with PayPal and Palantir founder Peter Thiel, so it could have been him as well — but that's far less likely because he's been too busy harvesting the world's data for governments and (allegedly) getting into young blood transfusions to get into the AI sphere as much as others in the PayPal Mafia.

Until Musk decides to release the unredacted versions of the messages himself — which, of course, is not far from the realm of possibility given the way he acts online, especially when chagrined — we probably won't find out who he was discussing when wagging his fingers at his OpenAI buddies-turned-enemies.

But ain't guessing at it fun?

More on Elon antics: OpenAI Leaks Elon Musk's Emails Showing He Was on Board With Cash Grab