Elon Musk has weighed in on the risks of handing AI agents sweeping control.
On Monday night, Musk posted an image of a monkey being handed a rifle on X, captioned: “People giving OpenClaw root access to their entire life.”
The image was originally shared by X user @DEVOUR_ in response to a post from Meta’s director of AI alignment and safety, Summer Yue.
“Nothing humbles you like telling your OpenClaw ‘confirm before acting’ and watching it speedrun deleting your inbox,” Yue wrote on X Monday. “I couldn’t stop it from my phone. I had to RUN to my Mac mini like I was defusing a bomb.”
Yue had given OpenClaw full access to her work inbox and told the agent to “suggest what you would archive or delete.” Screenshots she shared showed the agent continuing to “clear everything” in her inbox even after she told it to stop.
Musk took a swipe at Yue in a reply to another user on X.
“Someone who got p0wned by OpenClaw is definitely gonna solve AI safety,” Musk wrote.
Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, also chimed in. He wrote on X in reply to Yue’s post: “/stop does the trick.”
OpenClaw and its agent-only social platform, Moltbook, went viral earlier this year as developers shared videos of AI agents posting, debating, and networking autonomously.
Last week, OpenAI’s Sam Altman announced he had hired Steinberger to work on the “next generation” of personal AI agents — an effort he said would “quickly become core to our product offerings.”
Musk and Altman’s feud
Musk’s comments about OpenClaw come amid his long-running, increasingly heated rivalry with Altman.
Last month, Musk escalated tensions by posting on X: “Don’t let your loved ones use ChatGPT,” responding to a post that said OpenAI’s chatbot had been linked to multiple deaths since its 2022 release.
Altman pushed back, defending ChatGPT and OpenAI’s safety efforts before turning his fire on Tesla’s Autopilot system, calling it unsafe.
Earlier this month, Altman said in a post on X that he’s “really excited” to take the fight with Musk into court.
“Really excited to get Elon under oath in a few months, Christmas in April!” the OpenAI CEO wrote.
Musk sued OpenAI and Altman in February 2024, accusing the company of abandoning its nonprofit mission. He said he had contributed $38 million to OpenAI in its early days under the understanding that it would remain nonprofit. Musk was among the company’s original founders, alongside Altman and others.
The jabs have extended beyond safety debates and lawsuits. Speaking during a live interview with local media in New Delhi on Friday, Altman dismissed Musk’s proposal to put data centers in space.
“I honestly think the idea with the current landscape of putting data centers in space is ridiculous,” Altman said, drawing laughter from the audience.
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