Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, claimed that as soon as he learned that Elon Musk had sued him, he texted him. In an onstage interview at City Arts & Lectures on Thursday, Altman revealed to tech writer Kara Swisher that he had texted the billionaire "something trivial" following Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and many of its cofounders.

Altman said, "It was kind of nicer than that." "I can't recall. The spirit of it, you know." After that, according to Altman, the two "sent some emojis back and forth."  A request for comment from the representatives of Altman and Musk was not immediately answered.

Musk filed a lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI earlier this year, claiming the firm had violated its "founding agreement" and was in danger of going against its charitable goal of advancing human welfare through its collaboration with Microsoft.

Musk is demanding that OpenAI stop allowing Microsoft to participate in GPT-4, make its technology and research open-source, and stop Altman and Microsoft from profiting from the business. In 2015, Musk and Altman cofounded OpenAI. However, around three years later, Musk left the company's board, claiming his work on AI at Tesla had put him in a conflict of interest. In the years since stepping out from OpenAI's board of directors, the CEO of Tesla has frequently criticized Altman and the business.

Altman has responded to Musk in public with more tact in the face of his well publicized insults. The billionaire should do more to recognize the work OpenAI has done to allay worries about the technology, he told Lex Fridman last year, adding that he knows Musk is "really stressed" about AI safety.

"It's the Elon I miss," Altman said to Swisher. The CEO said, "I grew up with him as an absolute hero." Nevertheless, Altman's business has already begun to respond to Musk's complaint.

OpenAI's attorneys labeled Musk's complaint "frivolous" and "incoherent" in a court document made public on Monday. They said the billionaire was motivated by jealously of OpenAI's success after he departed the firm. The developer of ChatGPT also made public a few emails that seemed to contradict Elon Musk's statements about the business earlier this month.