Musk's Failed DeepMind Bid

A story about how Elon Musk attempted to prevent Google from acquiring DeepMind by trying to raise emergency funding.

According to the lawsuit documents, when Elon Musk found out Google was trying to buy DeepMind, he became very concerned. He was worried because Google had the most data (emails, search, YouTube) and DeepMind had a monopoly on AI talent. He feared that artificial general intelligence would end up in the hands of the biggest private company monopoly.

In response, Musk went to PayPal cofounder Luke Nosek and tried to quickly raise $500 million in emergency funding to buy DeepMind instead of Google. However, he failed to pull the deal together in the final moments, and DeepMind was ultimately acquired by Google.

This failed attempt became a trigger point that later led Musk to team up with Sam Altman to create OpenAI, as a way to catch up with Google in the AI race.