Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that the organization has strayed from its original nonprofit mission by teaming up with Microsoft for $13 billion and keeping its code for its latest generative AI products confidential.
Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI in 2015, has since departed and established his own AI company, xAI. His complaint, lodged Thursday in California state court, asserts that the company’s collaboration with Microsoft breaches OpenAI’s founding charter, constituting a breach of contract. Musk is demanding a jury trial and seeking repayment of profits earned by the company, Altman, and co-founder Greg Brockman.
OpenAI was initially established as a safeguard against what the founders perceived as a significant threat posed by artificial general intelligence (AGI) to humanity. The organization established a board of overseers to scrutinize any product it produced, and the code for its products was made publicly available.
However, in 2019, Altman, Brockman, and Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever formed OpenAI LP, a for-profit entity operating within the larger organization’s framework. This for-profit arm propelled OpenAI’s valuation from zero to $90 billion in just a few years, with Altman being widely recognized as the architect of this strategy and a key figure in the company’s success.
The lawsuit also references a high-profile leadership crisis last year that led to Altman’s temporary removal from the company, reportedly due to concerns from several board members about the risks associated with artificial intelligence. Following a period of uncertainty and Microsoft’s intervention, Altman was reinstated, which industry analysts viewed as a victory for those advocating for the commercialization of AI technology.
The lawsuit reiterates this assertion, stating, “The public remains unaware of the specifics of the Board’s ‘deliberative review process’ that led to Mr. Altman’s initial dismissal.” However, according to Musk and the general public, it is evident that OpenAI has forsaken its “irrevocable” nonprofit mission in pursuit of profit.
Although Microsoft, which has made significant investments in OpenAI and maintains a close partnership with the startup, is not named as a defendant in Musk’s lawsuit, it is mentioned numerous times in the complaint.
Much of the lawsuit focuses on Microsoft’s apparent influence over OpenAI and its economic dominance. Musk has previously threatened to take legal action against Microsoft, accusing it of appropriating content from X, Musk’s social media company, to train Microsoft AI tools.
“OpenAI, Inc. has effectively become a closed-source subsidiary of the world’s largest technology company: Microsoft,” the lawsuit alleges. “Under its new board, it is not merely developing but actively refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft.”
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, parted ways with OpenAI in 2018 but has continued to voice concerns about the perils of artificial intelligence. In the complaint, he characterizes the current leadership of OpenAI as driven by greed.
“While some, like Mr. Musk, perceive an existential threat in AGI, others view AGI as a source of profit and power,” the complaint contends.
