Elon Musk, co-founder of OpenAI, initiated legal proceedings against the organization and its CEO, Sam Altman. The lawsuit alleges a shift from OpenAI’s original non-profit mission, accusing Altman of prioritizing profit over the initial objective of developing AI for public benefit and sharing research openly.
The lawsuit further asserts that OpenAI’s emphasis on financial gains for Altman and Microsoft, a major investor with a $13 bn stake in OpenAI’s profit-oriented division, has resulted in a lack of transparency concerning GPT-4, the company’s most advanced language model. Musk is also seeking the return of his $44 mn in donations to OpenAI.
Despite OpenAI's ongoing claim that its charter is to ensure that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) ‘benefits all of humanity,’ the lawsuit states that OpenAI transformed into a closed-source subsidiary of Microsoft, the world’s largest technology company. It alleges that under its new Board, OpenAI is refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for humanity’s benefit.
Musk’s legal action against OpenAI aligns with his longstanding dissatisfaction with the organization. He repeatedly questioned the legality of establishing OpenAI as a non-profit and then leveraging its intellectual property for profit. As early as February 2023, Musk expressed his discontent, stating that the current state of OpenAI was “not what I intended at all.”
Musk’s pivotal role in the creation and financing of OpenAI is highlighted in the lawsuit. It emphasizes that in 2015, Sam Altman approached Musk to establish an AI lab that could compete with Google’s DeepMind, and then lead the AI race.
Musk, Altman, and OpenAI President Greg Brockman co-founded the non-profit organization, with Musk donating $15 mn in 2016 and covering the initial office expenses in San Francisco. Musk also played a key role in recruiting OpenAI’s former chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, from Google.
The idea of transitioning OpenAI from a non-profit foundation to a for-profit entity reportedly emerged in 2017. According to the lawsuit, Brockman and others proposed the idea to Musk, who categorically rejected it.
Altman agreed with Musk’s position, expressing his continued support for the non-profit structure. Although Musk stepped down from his co-chair position in 2018 and reduced his donations, he remained involved in the project. Despite Musk’s earlier opposition, OpenAI established a for-profit arm in 2019.
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