Elon Musk and Sam Altman are engaged in a long-running dispute over generative artificial intelligent. While the jury is still out as to whether this technology is a bursting bubble, we can be certain that employees of both companies have made it big.
The latest report from Business Insider Today’s report shows that both Altman’s OpenAI and Musk’s xAI are paying a lot to get the key talent they need to build their AI bots. The report examines the salaries of engineers at both startups, using publicly available visa data that companies are required to submit in order for them to hire foreign workers. The data includes both position titles and salaries. It shows that Musk’s obstinate desire to beat OpenAI did nothing but put more money into engineers’ pockets.
Business Insider Comparing the salaries of both startups to the average wage in the industry for similar roles, it was found that xAI pays its employees 37% more than the average. OpenAI pays their employees 87% more. The Department of Labor collects information on prevailing wages. This is the average wage that workers in certain occupations receive within a specified geographic area.
xAI has only about 100 employees at the moment and has applied for visas for 10 roles. The lowest-paid engineer received $250,000, and the highest-paid received $500,000. One employee, a principal machine-learning engineer at xAI was paid almost twice the government-defined prevailing wages. OpenAI has thousands employees with salaries that range from $145,000 to $500,000. OpenAI has a larger number of administrative employees, which is why the salary range there is wider.
This new data is not surprising. The entire tech sector is undergoing a massive AI hype, and each company must use the buzzword to attract investors. Google and Meta, for example, are also competing to attract AI talent in order to ride the AI wave. Business Insider The analysis did not include the wages offered by these companies. The data does not include stock-based compensation.
Add to that the history between Musk, and Altman. The former is a jilted love who quit his position at OpenAI due to diverging views. However, the company became a global phenomenon just a few short years later. It’s like breaking off a relationship with a girl, only to see her glow up years later.
Musk has raised billions to try and win back the money. He has created his own AI company and chatbot, Grok, which he claims will produce the most speech-friendly chatbot. He attached it to X to salvage the $44 Billion purchase of that company. Musk has made a huge investment in both ventures. More than $50 billion was invested between the two. Musk’s ego will take a big hit if xAI or its Grok chatbot fails.
Musk is also trying to win in court, suing OpenAI to stop it converting into a profit-making company. OpenAI, which Musk and Altman founded as a non profit focused on AI safety but is constantly in need of cash to fuel its ambitious plans, will not be able to attract investors if it continues to be a convoluted nonprofit. Musk is right that he provided the initial funding with the explicit purpose of creating a benefit for the public, but emails revealed in court show he also pushed the idea to become a for-profit business years ago so it could be easier to raise money. This lawsuit is a ploy to slow down OpenAI.
Musk, as part of the lawsuit Musk has stated that OpenAI uses exorbitant salary in a way to stifle competitiveness. Everyone in tech is a free-market maximalist, until they aren’t.