Elon Emails

Musk: announce a $1B commitment, not $100M

From:
Elon Musk
Date:
November 22, 2015 (Sent 7:48 PM)
To:
Greg Brockman (cc: Sam Altman)
Subject:
follow up from call
Blog sounds good, assuming adjustments for neutrality vs being YC-centric. I'd favor positioning the blog to appeal a bit more to the general public -- there is a lot of value to having the public root for us to succeed -- and then having a longer, more detailed and inside-baseball version for recruiting, with a link to it at the end of the general public version. We need to go with a much bigger number than $100M to avoid sounding hopeless relative to what Google or Facebook are spending. I think we should say that we are starting with a $1B funding commitment. This is real. I will cover whatever anyone else doesn't provide. Template seems fine, apart from shifting to a vesting cash bonus as default, which can optionally be turned into YC or potentially SpaceX (need to understand how much this will be) stock.

About this email

Musk approves the blog direction with less YC-centric framing, urges a general-public version, insists on announcing a $1B funding commitment that he will backstop, and suggests a vesting cash bonus convertible to YC or SpaceX stock.

Notes

The $1B passage was first published in excerpt by OpenAI in March 2024; the full email appeared later in court exhibits.

Where it came from

Court record; attribution confirmed.

OpenAI, executive & internal. Tags: funding, 1-billion, launch, blog-draft, compensation, musk-v-openai