today they don’t even talk

Life takes many turns and, what seems like a good plan today, time takes care of putting it in its rightful place. More than 25 years ago, Larry Page, co-founder of Google, and Elon Musk shared a close friendship in which they even shared a house. Today they don’t even speak to each other.

Everything to save humanity. In 2014, Larry Page surprised with a statement that, beyond the anecdotal, revealed his way of seeing the future. During an interview with Charlie Rose within the framework of the TED conferences, the journalist asked her about some statements that Page had previously made. “You once said that you might consider, instead of giving your money to a philanthropic cause, just giving it to Elon Musk because you were confident he would change the future.”

The reason? According to the Google co-founder, Musk not only seeks to revolutionize electric mobility with Tesla, or take humanity to Mars with SpaceX; For Page, Elon Musk embodies the spirit of innovation capable of radically transforming the world to make that happen.

Companies that change the world. As Larry Page explained, the initiatives being carried out by millionaires such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, who set their goal on improving the living conditions of humanity, demonstrate that when managed effectively, companies can boost revolutionary changes. “We have a lot of employees at Google who have become quite rich… A lot of people there are quite rich. They work because they want to change the world and make it better.”

According to Page, Musk’s vision was not only business, but also philanthropic out of a sense of “general interest” for all humanity. Larry Page stressed that these projects should not be seen as opposed to the search for the common good. “He actually wants to go to Mars to support humanity. It’s a laudable goal, but it’s a business and it’s philanthropic. So I think our goal is to do similar things,” Page said in the interview. Let’s not forget that this was what I thought in 2014.

The solid friendship of Elon Musk and Larry Page. The relationship between Page and Musk began back in 1998 when the founders of Google were beginning to attract the first investments for their search engine. In his early days, Musk often visited Page’s house during his visits to Silicon Valley. Page even jokingly told Ashlee Vance, author of one of Elon Musk’s biographies: “He’s kind of homeless, which I think is kind of funny. He emails me and says, ‘I don’t know where stay tonight. Can I go to your house?’ “I haven’t given him a key or anything yet.”

According to this biography, both millionaires even agreed with a handshake on a rescue plan for Tesla in 2013, in which Google would Buy Tesla for $11 billion. Ultimately, the deal came to nothing because Tesla overcame its financial problems. However, their views on artificial intelligence (AI) marked the beginning of the end of their friendship.

Separated by AI. The confidence that Larry Page had shown in 2014 would gradually fade as the development of AI progressed and its potential was discovered. According to Walter Isaacson, Musk’s biographer, the tension between the two millionaires began in 2013.

During a birthday party, Page, optimistic about the potential of AI, called Musk a “speciesist” for prioritizing human interests over other forms of intelligence. Musk, for his part, saw AI as a potential risk to humanity that must be controlled.

From friends to rivals. What at first seemed like a discrepancy of opinion about what AI should be, soon escalated to business interests, and there all of Page’s praise for Musk’s vision and “his philanthropic mission” vanished.

When Elon Musk pushed and financially supported the creation of OpenAI as a non-profit organization to ensure the safety of artificial intelligence, Larry Page interpreted it as a direct challenge to Google and its then-recent acquisition of DeepMind. In fact, Musk even maneuvered to try to convince DeepMind’s board not to sell the company to Google. Since then, Larry Page and Elon Musk have not spoken to each other.

A desired reconciliation that may not come. Elon Musk has not changed his mind and this is demonstrated by the legal battle he maintains with OpenAI for having changed the status of the ChatGPT development company to a for-profit entity.

Despite their disagreements, Elon Musk has publicly expressed his desire to regain his friendship with Page. During the 400th episode of Lex Fridman’s podcast, Musk confessed: “I would like to be friends with Larry again. What really ended our friendship was OpenAI.” However, he also acknowledged that Page might not share his desire for his opinion on AI: “He doesn’t want to talk to me anymore,” the millionaire lamented. Larry Page probably won’t donate his entire fortune to him either.

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Imagen | Flickr (Scott Beale), Trevor Cokley