Elon Musk has called on leading artificial intelligence companies, including U.S. and Chinese firms, to test each other’s models before they are released, as debate intensifies over the safety of increasingly powerful AI systems and whether development should be slowed.
Speaking at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles on Monday, Musk said his company SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and “three or four of the leading Chinese companies” should allow competitors to run a “test harness” on their AI models to identify potential safety problems.
“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.
Musk said the approach would not be a perfect solution but could improve the chances of detecting problems before models reach the public.
“The odds that you will find issues are dramatically greater,” he said.
The comments come as senior AI executives and researchers have stepped up warnings about the risks posed by advanced AI, including concerns that increasingly capable systems could cause catastrophic harm.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for a slowdown in AI development, while OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Musk have backed elements of the proposal.
The debate intensified after Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic and OpenAI employee, said he had quit his job at Anthropic and accused leading AI companies of “gambling with our lives.”
Evan Hubinger, an alignment researcher at Anthropic, backed Coxon’s warning.
“Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade,” Hubinger wrote.
Amodei has proposed that AI companies use independent “embedded evaluators” to assess their safety practices, rather than relying solely on companies to evaluate their own systems.
Musk said competing AI companies had not agreed to his proposal but argued that cross-company testing could provide an additional layer of scrutiny.
“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.”
The debate over slowing AI development has also become entangled with U.S.-China competition over the technology.
U.S. President Donald Trump has rejected calls for greater government regulation of AI and said on social media that concerns about the technology were a “hoax” and a “scam.”
Trump has also argued that slowing the development of AI in the United States could give China an advantage.
Amodei has described the tension between AI safety and competition with China as the “toughest dilemma.”
A spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday described the AI industry’s calls for a slowdown as “fear mongering.”
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on Tuesday that the private sector was the “right place” to address concerns about AI. He said the U.S. government was monitoring the industry and would use “law enforcement when necessary to make sure that the firms are acting responsibly.”
Musk’s proposal comes as AI companies face growing pressure to demonstrate that increasingly capable models can be evaluated for safety before deployment, while governments grapple with how much oversight should be imposed on a rapidly evolving technology.
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