“Tesla is increasing comp (contingent on progress milestones) of our AI engineering team,” he posted on his X social media site, formerly Twitter. OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has been “aggressively recruiting Tesla engineers with massive compensation offers and have unfortunately been successful in a few cases,” he said. 

Musk was responding to an Information report about Tesla AI scientist Ethan Knight leaving the car company to join Musk’s xAI startup. “Ethan was going to join OpenAI, so it was either xAI or them,” Musk said.

Ethan was going to join OpenAI, so it was either xAI or them.

They have been aggressively recruiting Tesla engineers with massive compensation offers and have unfortunately been successful in a few cases.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2024

Musk, the world’s third-richest person, helped start OpenAI before having a falling-out with the company. He’s now approaching AI from multiple angles — both within Tesla, where it’s being used to help develop self-driving features, and at his xAI startup.

Read More: xAI Potential Investors Focus on ‘Muskonomy,’ OpenAI Success

“There are over 200 excellent engineers in the Tesla AI/Autonomy team,” he said on X. “Tesla’s pace of progress with autonomy is accelerating. The talent war for AI is the craziest talent war I’ve ever seen!”