On Thursday, February 29, Elon Musk sued OpenAI and his CEO Sam Altman because the latter allegedly violated the initial company’s founding agreement by prioritizing profit over benefits to humanity. The lawsuit was filed in Superior Court in San Francisco. It states that, “OpenAI has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company, Microsoft,” which develops general artificial intelligence (GAI) for profit.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Musk helped create OpenAI as a non-profit in 2015 and together with Mr. Altman, Greg Brockman–president of the company and named as a defendant–and other co-founders, conceived it as a public and open-source AI “for the benefit of humanity.” The company was supposed to share the underlying software code with the world to be as transparent as possible. Instead, users have to pay for the fourth version of ChatGPT and its access has been restricted. The latest was incorporated into Microsoft’s software and used to develop an AI app called Copilot, which simplifies user experience. According to Mr. Musk, it is “not just developing but is actually refining” artificial intelligence technology “to maximize profits for Microsoft.”
The accusations in the lawsuit go on: Mr. Musk provided the company’s initial office in San Francisco, paid the monthly lease, and contributed more than 44 million dollars between 2016 and 2020. He also claimed breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and unfair business practices, demanding that OpenAI make its research and technology public and that Mr. Altman pay back the funds “obtained illegally” as a result of his decisions.
It is only the last chapter of a long feud between the two influential and ultrarich figures. As soon as Mr. Musk left the board in 2018, the company created ChatGPT to climb up the market of generative AIs. Now the CEO of Tesla has his own AI company, called xAI, claiming to study and show the technology’s functions and risks clearly.
