Elon Musk may be suing OpenAI, accusing the ChatGPT maker of abandoning the company’s original mission as a nonprofit organization, but Josh Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital and one of the company’s key investors, has nothing but good things to say about the world’s richest man.
“I have deep admiration and respect for Elon,” Kushner said last week at Fortune Global Forum.
His position may not be a surprise. Thrive is an investor in SpaceX, and Kushner has family ties to Donald Trump, whom Musk helped elect. Kushner is the younger brother of the president-elect’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Indeed, when asked if he may be more worried about his investment in OpenAI now that Musk has an outsized influence with the incoming White House, Kushner didn’t miss a chance to praise Musk’s political intentions. (Earlier last week, Trump appointed Musk to co-lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.)
“My interpretation of [Musk’s] excitement to participate in the government is very much driven by his desire to do right by everyone,” Kushner said. “I have extreme confidence that he is always going to do what he thinks is right for all Americans.”
Musk is taking more action than just suing OpenAI, which he helped establish and donated $44 million to. Last year, he launched an OpenAI competitor, xAI.
His lawsuit has named OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman as defendants, but Kushner didn’t want to highlight the dispute between the co-founders of his portfolio company and Musk.
“I know for certain that both Sam and Greg have deep respect and an immense amount of gratitude for all that Elon has done not just for OpenAI but for the rest of the world and humanity,” Kushner said.
Two days after Fortune interviewed Kushner, Musk filed an amended complaint, which also named Microsoft, its current board member Reid Hoffman, and former OpenAI board member and Microsoft VP Dee Templeton as new defendants.
It should be pointed out that many venture capital firms often try not to back direct competitors as part of their conflict-of-interest policies. However, it’s also true that many investors have been willing to back the hottest competitive AI companies if they were given the chance. Sequoia, for instance, was an early backer of OpenAI and has been a key investor in xAI.
Thrive was the lead backer of OpenAI’s latest $6.5 billion round, which valued the company at $157 billion. Kushner’s fund contributed $1.3 billion of that capital, with $750 million coming from the firm’s fund and $550 million from other investors through a special purpose vehicle, the New York Times reported. Thrive also reportedly has an option to invest an additional $1 billion in OpenAI next year at the same $157 billion valuation if the company hits its revenue goal of $11.6 billion. Thrive is not listed as an investor in xAI or any direct OpenAI competitor, according to its profile on PitchBook.
While Kushner’s public praise of Musk indicates how little he wants to rock the boat between the leaders of two of his high-profile portfolio companies, Musk’s allegations didn’t, perhaps, come out of the blue. Sources told Reuters in October that OpenAI asked its investors to avoid backing a specific list of other AI companies, including Musk’s xAI.
In the updated lawsuit, Musk’s lawyers argue that OpenAI is now “actively trying to eliminate competitors” like xAI by “extracting promises from investors not to fund them.”
In August, Thrive raised $5 billion across two funds: a $1 billion early-stage fund and $4 billion for investing in later-stage companies. The firm, which was founded in 2009, has a total of $15.5 billion in assets under management, according to PitchBook data.