Sam Altman wanted to release an open model at GPT-3 level to hinder competitors — from a 2022 letter
OpenAI
Stability AI
A 2022 email from Sam Altman to OpenAI's board, revealed in Musk v. Altman litigation (2026), shows Altman proposed releasing an open-source GPT-3-level model to run locally on consumer hardware. His stated goal was to preempt similar releases by Stability AI or others, thereby discouraging competitors and making it harder for new efforts to get funded.
On October 1, 2022, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman emailed the company's board discussing open source strategy. He proposed creating a language model with approximate GPT-3 capability that could run locally on consumer hardware and releasing it soon, before Stability AI or others did. Altman argued this would help discourage others from releasing similarly powerful models and make it harder for new efforts to get funded. The email was exposed in 2026 as part of the Musk v. Altman litigation.
Source: Simon Willison —
original