Billionaire Elon Musk has once again filed a lawsuit against the chatbot manufacturer OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, reigniting legal proceedings against the large artificial intelligence (AI) company that he co-founded.
A few months ago, Musk abruptly withdrew a similar lawsuit without providing reasons. On Monday, Musk filed a new lawsuit (case number 3:24-cv-04722) at the Northern District of California federal court.
In the new complaint, Musk alleges that Altman and President Greg Brockman violated the company’s founding mission by “intentionally deceiving Musk into co-founding a false non-profit entity,” promising to create safe and transparent AI technology but doing the opposite.
The latest lawsuit describes the case as a “textbook story of altruism and greed,” likening Altman’s “long-term deception” of Musk to a “Shakespearean tale of betrayal and deceit.”
Musk’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, stated to The New York Times that Musk’s second lawsuit will be “more forceful,” accusing OpenAI of violating federal extortion laws in an attempt to defraud him when he left the company in 2018.
The lawsuit also questions Microsoft’s significant investment in the company, claiming that OpenAI’s dealings with the tech giant contradict its founding principles as Microsoft prohibits the company from open-sourcing its technology.
These allegations echo Musk’s previous claims in the first lawsuit. Musk was among the co-founders of OpenAI in its early days and invested millions of dollars. In February 2018, Musk left the OpenAI board to avoid conflicts of interest as he was also recruiting AI talent for Tesla.
In February of this year, Musk initiated a lawsuit against OpenAI, Altman, and Brockman, but the lawsuit was dismissed in June without explanation.
At that time, Musk alleged that OpenAI had turned into a de facto closed-source subsidiary of Microsoft instead of being a nonprofit organization as intended.
Musk stated that when OpenAI was launched, he signed an establishment agreement, which stated that “OpenAI will remain a nonprofit organization and its technology will remain open source.” However, OpenAI’s collaboration with Microsoft violated the founding agreement.
Musk requested the court to compel OpenAI to revert to being a nonprofit organization developing open-source software and to prohibit Altman and Brockman from using OpenAI or its assets for financial gain or benefiting Microsoft or any other entity. He asked the court to issue an injunction against the use of OpenAI.
OpenAI has refuted Musk’s allegations, stating that the establishment agreement he referred to does not exist. They also pointed out that shortly before Musk’s departure from the company in 2018, he proposed in company emails the merger of OpenAI with Tesla or acquiring full control through equity acquisition.
Musk currently owns an independent AI startup called xAI, in addition to leading the social platform X, Tesla, and the space company SpaceX.