Elon Musk Takes Aim at Sam Altman: Refiles Explosive Lawsuit Against OpenAI

Court documents reveal Elon Musk's renewed lawsuit against OpenAI. Credit: Credit: Solen Feyissa/Unsplash

Tuesday, August 6, 2024 2:45 AM UTC

Musk has been actively working against the firm he co-founded in 2015 and then departed three years later, and this lawsuit is his latest effort to do so. While Musk launched xAI, a competing business, in May of last year and was valued at $24 billion, OpenAI has become the public face of generative AI since his departure, Reuters shares.

A judge will decide whether or not OpenAI's license to Microsoft to utilize its AI models is valid in the most recent lawsuit. Furthermore, according to Musk, the language models do not fall under OpenAI's Microsoft cooperation remit.

This complaint is identical to the one Musk had previously filed in February; however, he withdrew it in June without providing an explanation, the day before a judge was supposed to consider OpenAI's request to dismiss the case. The case was filed at the Court for the Northern District of California.

A positive ruling would allow Musk to end the fruitful collaboration between OpenAI and Microsoft, the software giant that has spent $13 billion in the business in return for artificial intelligence technology that it is currently integrating into its services.

As a result of the partnership, Microsoft is now in the lead in the fiercely competitive field of generative AI, but it is also the subject of intense scrutiny from government agencies.

Per XM, as soon as OpenAI's technology began to revolutionize genAI, the most recent complaint claims, Altman "flipped the narrative and proceeded to cash in."

"OpenAI and Microsoft stand to make a fortune selling this technology to the public, which would not be possible if the non-profit made its research and technology freely available, as Altman had repeatedly promised Musk," according to the complaint.

Despite the fact that OpenAI is a nonprofit organization, Microsoft has put $13 billion into a for-profit arm of the company that was established in 2019 to support artificial intelligence (AI) research and development.

A request for comment was not immediately returned by Musk, and OpenAI directed Reuters to its initial answer to Musk from March.

In March, OpenAI shot down Musk's accusations by releasing emails that demonstrated the Tesla CEO had backed plans to establish a for-profit company and merge with it, turning it into Tesla's "cash cow."

Altman rose to prominence after the publication of ChatGPT by OpenAI at the tail end of 2022 caused a global sensation, and his rise to prominence culminated in his ouster and subsequent return to the business in November.