Last June, Elon Musk withdrew his lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, without any explanation. We noted back then that there was nothing preventing him from resuming the legal battle later on. After nearly two months of peace, the billionaire has once again filed a lawsuit against the artificial intelligence company and its CEO.
The first lawsuit had been filed in a California state court, while the new one has been filed in a federal court in the same state. Once again, Musk says that the company he co-founded put profits and commercial interests before the public good, thus breaking with the founding principles it established to “benefit humankind.”
Musk’s Lawsuit Against OpenAI
The lawsuit alleges that Musk invested tens of millions of dollars in OpenAI and recruited top scientists based on Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman’s promise to run the company as a nonprofit. However, in 2019, the company changed its direction by announcing the creation of a “capped profit” structure.
Following this announcement, the company consisted of the nonprofit organization, OpenAI, Inc., and the for-profit organization, OpenAI Global, LLC. The latter allowed Microsoft to invest around $13 billion in the AI company and establish a deal to integrate its technology into various products.
In recent months, OpenAI has integrated some of its language models into Microsoft services. Some examples include GPT-4 in Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant, which is present in the Bing search engine, Microsoft 365 office solutions, and the Windows operating system. Additionally, these models are trained and operated using Microsoft Azure's cloud infrastructure.
“Elon Musk's case against Sam Altman and OpenAl is a textbook tale of altruism versus greed. Altman, in concert with other Defendants, intentionally courted and deceived Musk, preying on Musk’s humanitarian concern about the existential dangers posed by artificial intelligence,” the lawsuit concludes.
The Disagreement Between Musk and Altman
OpenAI’s mission included the development of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) for the benefit of humanity. However, developing this type of AI had a high cost. Between 2017 and 2018, there was a proposal for a potential collaboration between OpenAI and Tesla to address this issue.
There are differing opinions about the proposed collaboration. OpenAI claims that Musk sought a merger with Tesla or complete control of the AI company. Musk, on the other hand, states that it was Brockman who suggested the idea of seeking funding from Tesla to ensure the company would be “in good hands” and able to “[maintain] its mission.”
What Is Musk Seeking With His New Lawsuit?
In the new lawsuit, Musk is alleging that OpenAI and Altman have departed from the company’s original principles by pursuing commercial interests. As a result, Musk is seeking a court injunction to invalidate the agreement between OpenAI and Microsoft, which would prevent Microsoft from using OpenAI’s language models.
It’s uncertain how this legal action will unfold. Previously, Musk withdrew a lawsuit a day before a judge was scheduled to hear OpenAI’s motion to dismiss the case. As Reuters reports, if Musk prevails in this lawsuit, it could pose challenges for Microsoft, considering the company relies on OpenAI’s language models for some of its services.
That said, there are noticeable shifts in the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft. Microsoft is not only working on its own AI initiatives, but it has also positioned OpenAI as one of its competitors in AI development and search.
This article was written by Javier Marquez and originally published in Spanish on Xataka.
Image | Steve Jurvetson | Village Global
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