OpenAI requested that a federal judge in California deny billionaire (also Tesla and X boss) Elon Musk’s request to stop the ChatGPT maker from becoming a for-profit business.
To support its claim that Elon Musk first supported OpenAI’s for-profit status before leaving the company after failing to obtain a majority equity stake and complete control, OpenAI also posted a wealth of emails and texts with Musk on its website.
Since founding OpenAI, Elon Musk has started a rival artificial intelligence business called xAI.
In August 2024, Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, its CEO, Sam Altman, and others, alleging that they had broken the terms of the contract by prioritising profits over the general welfare in the effort to develop AI technologies.
In November, he requested a preliminary injunction from US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland to prevent OpenAI from becoming a for-profit company.
A request for comment from Elon Musk’s attorney was not immediately answered.
In a blog post, OpenAI stated that Musk “should be competing in the marketplace rather than the courtroom.”
Elon Musk claimed OpenAI was planning to displace competitors and control the market for generative artificial intelligence, and he has since added Microsoft and other companies as defendants in his case.
According to OpenAI’s court filing, Elon Musk’s request for a preliminary injunction was founded on “unsupported allegations” and denied any conspiracy to impede competition in the AI market.
Microsoft stated in a different court filing that it and OpenAI “are independent companies that each pursue their own strategies and compete vigorously with each other and many others.”
The OpenAI partnership, according to Microsoft, has “fuelled innovation between them and others.”
OpenAI began as a nonprofit in 2014 and has since received billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft to become the leading voice in generative AI.
The company closed a USD 6.66 billion investor funding round in October 2024, potentially valuing it at USD 157 billion.