Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit in San Francisco against OpenAI, accusing the company of betraying and “distorting” the goals and objectives that were set when it was founded in 2015. The plaintiff wants the court to compel OpenAI to fulfill the terms of the founding agreement and to “follow the mission of developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity,” rather than for the benefit of its leadership and Microsoft.
OpenAI was established in 2015 as a non-profit research organization for the development of “safe and beneficial” AI technologies. Among the founders were scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, and Elon Musk, who served on the board of directors and partially funded the research. As Mr. Musk notes in the lawsuit, when OpenAI was created, he entered into an agreement with other co-founders of the company, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, that OpenAI would remain a non-profit entity that would develop technologies for the benefit of society. The founding documents also stated, according to Elon Musk, that OpenAI would keep its source code open, rather than restricting access to it by other companies. In 2018, Elon Musk severed ties with OpenAI, and in 2019, the company changed its structure to a commercial one and began receiving investments from Microsoft. Specifically, Microsoft invested $1 billion in 2019 and $10 billion in 2023.
As stated in his lawsuit, Mr. Musk claims that “OpenAI has transformed into a de facto division with closed-source code of the world’s largest technology company, Microsoft.” And now, according to the plaintiff, the company “not only develops but also enhances strong artificial intelligence (artificial general intelligence) to increase Microsoft’s profits, rather than for the benefit of humanity.” Elon Musk accuses the leadership of OpenAI, including current CEO Sam Altman, president Greg Brockman, and all the structures within OpenAI, of not fulfilling the terms of the agreement, breaching fiduciary duties, and engaging in unfair business practices. The plaintiff insists that the case be heard by a jury.