Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, claiming that the firm behind ChatGPT has deviated from its original, nonprofit objective by partnering with Microsoft for $13 billion and keeping the code for its newest generative AI products secret.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, has since quit to start his own AI firm, xAI. His complaint, filed Thursday in California state court, alleges that the firm and its cooperation with Microsoft breached OpenAI’s founding charter, resulting in a breach of contract. Musk is requesting a jury trial and that the company, Altman, and co-founder Greg Brockman repay the profits earned from the business.
OpenAI was formed to protect humanity from what the creators saw as a severe threat posed by artificial generative intelligence, or AGI. The corporation established a board of overseers to assess whatever product it generated, and its product code was made public.
However, in 2019, Altman, Brockman, and Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever established OpenAI LP, a for-profit firm operating within the bigger company’s framework. That for-profit firm transformed OpenAI from worthless to $90 billion in just a few years, and Altman is widely regarded as the mastermind behind that strategy and the key to the company’s success.
The lawsuit also references a high-profile leadership conflict last year, which resulted in Altman’s temporary departure from the firm, reportedly due to concerns raised by some board members about the perils of artificial intelligence. After days of uncertainty and a Microsoft intervention, Altman was reinstated in his post, which industry commentators described as a triumph for those attempting to commercialize AI technology.
Thursday’s lawsuit repeats that claim, “The public is still in the dark regarding what exactly the Board’s ‘deliberative review process’ revealed that resulted in the initial firing of Mr. Altman,” the complaint said. “However, one thing is clear to Mr. Musk and the public at large: OpenAI has abandoned its ‘irrevocable’ non-profit mission in the pursuit of profit.”
Although Microsoft — which has invested billions of dollars into OpenAI and which has a close partnership with the startup — is not named as a defendant in Musk’s suit, the tech giant appears 68 times in the complaint.
Much of the lawsuit takes issue with Microsoft’s apparent influence over OpenAI and Microsoft’s economic position. Musk has previously threatened to sue Microsoft and accused it of stealing content from X, Musk’s social media company, to train Microsoft AI tools.
OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft,” Thursday’s lawsuit said. “Under its new Board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft.”
Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, left OpenAI in 2018. He has continued to speak out against the dangers of artificial intelligence. In the complaint, he framed the current OpenAI leaders as greedy. “Where some like Mr. Musk see an existential threat in AGI, others see AGI as a source of profit and power,” the complaint stated.
This story was first published by CNN.