Elon Musk Boosts Tesla Pay to Prevent OpenAI from Poaching Talent

Tesla is Increasing Compensation for Its AI Engineering Team

In an effort to retain top talent, Elon Musk has announced that Tesla will be increasing compensation for its Artificial Intelligence (AI) engineering team. This move comes as a response to the departure of several engineers from Tesla who have joined his own AI venture, xAI.

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A Talent War

Musk took to X, his social media network, to express his frustration with the "craziest talent war I’ve ever seen!" He attributed this war to the aggressive recruitment efforts made by OpenAI, a rival company that has poached several Tesla engineers.

A Growing Concern

The exodus of personnel from Musk’s most valuable company to his newest venture may exacerbate concerns about conflicts and governance within the billionaire’s empire. In January, Musk stated that unless he was awarded around 25% voting control at Tesla, he would prefer to develop AI and robotics products elsewhere.

A Turning Point

Two weeks later, a Delaware judge voided a massive stock award that Tesla’s board had arranged for him in 2018. This decision may have contributed to Musk’s desire to focus on developing AI and robotics products outside of Tesla.

The Formation of xAI

Musk announced the formation of xAI in July last year, after months of hinting that he wanted to build an alternative to the hit product ChatGPT. He played a pivotal role in co-founding OpenAI, but fell out with other leaders at the startup.

A Conflict of Interest

After The Information reported on Wednesday that Ethan Knight, a member of Tesla’s team working on computer vision for advanced driving systems, left last month to join xAI, Musk said that OpenAI had tried to hire him.

OpenAI’s Aggressive Recruitment Efforts

Musk wrote on X: "Ethan was going to join OpenAI, so it was either xAI or them. They have been aggressively recruiting Tesla engineers with massive compensation offers and have unfortunately been successful in a few cases."

A Talent Drain

Months after Tesla lost Andrej Karpathy, its senior director of AI, in July 2022, he rejoined OpenAI and worked on ChatGPT’s large-language model. Karpathy left the company early this year.

Tesla’s Response

Musk launched a competitor to ChatGPT called Grok in November. He’s said that investors in X — which has lost significant value since he acquired the company formerly known as Twitter — will own 25% of xAI.

A Reassurance from Musk

There are over 200 excellent engineers in the Tesla AI/Autonomy team, Musk wrote Wednesday in a post downplaying Knight’s leaving for xAI. "Tesla’s pace of progress with autonomy is accelerating."

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This article highlights the growing concern about the talent war between Tesla and OpenAI. The aggressive recruitment efforts made by OpenAI have led to several departures from Tesla, causing Musk to increase compensation for his AI engineering team. This move may signal a shift in focus for Musk, who is now emphasizing the development of AI and robotics products outside of Tesla.