Elon Musk Sues OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman Over Microsoft Deal
Musk claims Altman is valuing profits over founding promises.
Elon Musk sues OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman over OpenAI’s recent partnership with Microsoft. Musk argues that Altman defrauded him when he co-founded the company in 2015. This follows Musk’s withdrawal of a prior lawsuit back in June over the company allegedly valuing profits over the founding agreement of AI research “for the benefit of humanity.”
The new suit uses OpenAI’s latest exclusive partnership with Microsoft (which gives the company access to its powerful AI mode GPT-4) to argue that OpenAI abandoned the non-profit founding mission in which Musk invested. He claims the company promised to place “a focus on safety and openness for the benefit of humanity, not shareholder value,” resulting in his $45 million USD investment.
After Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018, Altman allegedly shifted the company’s focus to for-profit opportunities including creating OpenAI, L.P. The lawsuit alleges that the company created a “corporate web for the purpose of profiting from the non-profit’s assets.”
The suit states, “The nonprofit’s 2022 IRS tax return showed just $44,485.00 in revenue, but one year later, OpenAI overall reportedly generated hundreds of millions of dollars.”
With AI evolving so quickly and being able to render hyper-realistic content, creators stand to experience losses. One of Musk’s lawyers, Marc Toberoff, argues that if companies like OpenAI and Microsoft control AI, many creators will continue to be ripped off/cut out. He says, “This case is about far more than money, the future of AGI lies in the balance.”
In light of Musk’s recent fallout with OpenAI, he began xAI last year which garnered a $24 billion USD evaluation.
