Brockman: non-profit, then for-profit, then government project

From:: Greg Brockman
Date:: July 21, 2017
To:: Elon Musk; cc Ilya Sutskever
Subject:: Re: Beijing Wants A.I. to Be Made in China by 2030

100% agreed. We think the path must be: 1. AI research non-profit (through end of 2017) 2. AI research + hardware for-profit (starting 2018) 3. Government project (when: ??) Government project is helpful for financial resources, but crucial for security - don't know how to defend against Putin or North Korea otherwise. When ready, we must proactively form the project around us, rather than being slurped in against our will. -gdb

About this email

Brockman agrees with Musk and sketches a three-stage path: research non-profit through 2017, a research-plus-hardware for-profit from 2018, and eventually a government project, which he calls crucial for security against Putin or North Korea.

Notes

The paragraph about a government project was blacked out in OpenAI's Dec 2024 blog post and in the LessWrong archive; it appears unredacted in the chain filed as Ex. 51 to the Wiener Declaration (Dkt. 328-55, Oct 17, 2025), from which this text is taken. The exhibit quotes the message as sent 'Jul 22, 2017, at 4:32 AM' (time zone of the quoting client); the blog post gives Jul 21, 2017 1:18 PM.

Where it came from

Published by recipient; attribution confirmed.

OpenAI, executive & internal. Tags: china, for-profit, strategy, government, security

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