Amid growing debate over AI safety, Elon Musk has called on leading artificial intelligence companies to test one another’s models before making them available to the public.
Speaking at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles on Monday, Musk said xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and “three or four of the leading Chinese companies” should allow rival companies to run a “test harness” on their AI models to identify potential safety concerns.
“So, you know, instead of grading your own homework, you would at least have competitors grading your homework and raising the alarm if they see concerns,” Musk said.
His comments come as AI leaders debate whether the pace of model development should slow to allow safety measures to catch up. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for slower development, while Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have backed his proposal.
The discussion intensified after former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned about the risks of advanced AI. Anthropic alignment lead Evan Hubinger also supported Coxon’s concerns and wrote, “Jacob is correct here — we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade.”
The Trump administration has opposed calls for broader limits on AI development, while China’s Foreign Ministry has described the push for a slowdown as “fear mongering.”
Musk said his peer-review approach may not be perfect but argued, “The odds that you will find issues are dramatically greater.”
Amodei has separately proposed the use of third-party “embedded evaluators” to assess AI safety practices.
Musk acknowledged that rival AI companies have not agreed to his proposal. His AI business, xAI, was acquired by SpaceX in February, while SpaceX completed a $60 billion acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor in August.
The debate also comes as xAI faces lawsuits and investigations related to the misuse of its Grok image-generation tools. SpaceX shares closed 3.15% lower on Tuesday.
“What I’m suggesting here is it’s a step in the right direction and it’s something that we do quickly,” Musk said. “I think it’s probably something that China would agree to.”
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