Elon Musk on Monday sued OpenAI and accused the creators of ChatGPT, including founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, of being a “textbook tale of altruism versus greed.”
According to the Associated Press (AP), the lawsuit filed in a federal court in Northern California accuses Altman and Brockman of prioritizing profits over the original mission to “benefit humanity.”
Musk, an early investor in OpenAI when it was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research organization meant to accelerate artificial intelligence “for the benefit of humanity,” claims in the lawsuit that he was deceived by Altman and others who allegedly exploited his concerns about the existential risks of artificial intelligence.
However, in response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for OpenAI pointed towards previous emails the company released in March from Musk that showed his previous support for making it a for-profit company.
“As we said about Elon’s initial legal filing, which was subsequently withdrawn, Elon’s prior emails continue to speak for themselves,” a spokesperson for OpenAI said in an emailed statement to the AP.
Musk dropped a previous lawsuit in June against OpenAI without explanation. That lawsuit alleged Musk had secured a commitment from Altman and Brockman to maintain OpenAI as a nonprofit entity, leading to OpenAI releasing Musk’s emails in March showing the past support for transforming the organization into a for-profit company.
Newsweek has reached out to Musk via Tesla email and OpenAI via email on Monday for comment.
The lawsuits follow a tumultuous relationship between Musk and Altman since the Tesla CEO co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with Altman and 10 others.
By 2018, Musk had reportedly grown weary of OpenAI’s progress, believing it had fallen too far behind rival Google. He proposed taking over the company himself, but Altman and others resisted. A power struggle ensued, and Musk eventually walked away—effectively ending his business relationship with Altman.
In addition, after OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, and Altman became the public face of the AI industry, their relationship soured further. Earlier this year, Musk reiterated his criticisms as he sued OpenAI and Altman personally, accusing them of “abandoning” the original mission to develop AI for humanity’s benefit, rather than as a for-profit company.
In a series of posts around that time, Musk accused Altman and OpenAI of lying and criticized their connection to Microsoft, which had signed a multi-billion dollar investment deal with OpenAI. At one point, Musk suggested the company change its name to “ClosedAI.”
Musk claimed that once OpenAI took money from Microsoft, the company breached its founding statement.
OpenAI responded with a blog post on its website “to move to dismiss all of Elon’s claims,” calling Musk’s posts “frivolous.”
