"Betrayed" Musk Files Lawsuit Again Against OpenAI and Altman

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has filed a lawsuit again against OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. The reason is similar to the lawsuit he withdrew a day before the trial started.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and others on the 5th (local time), the damages claim lawsuit filed by Musk this time centers on the allegation that he was deceived into investing by being told OpenAI was a non-profit organization at its founding, including by CEO Altman and other co-founders of OpenAI.

The complaint states, "Altman assured Musk that OpenAI's non-profit structure focused on neutrality, safety, and openness for the benefit of humanity, not shareholder value," but "it turned out to be an empty charitable act and a bait for Altman's long-term deception."

Musk's side claims that co-founders CEO Altman and Greg Brockman were involved in this fraud and extortion, and that the company later became a for-profit entity, violating the contract made with him at the time of establishment. In the complaint, he said, "I was betrayed by Altman and his accomplices," and criticized, "This betrayal and fraud are at the level of a Shakespearean work."

Additionally, he requested the court to confirm the value of the assets he contributed to OpenAI and to invalidate the license OpenAI granted to Microsoft (MS). MS, the largest investor in OpenAI, is known to have invested about $13 billion (approximately 17.8 trillion KRW) in OpenAI.

This lawsuit is similar to the one Musk filed against OpenAI and CEO Altman at the end of February. Previously, Musk claimed in the complaint that he accepted the proposal from CEO Altman and Brockman in 2015 to create a non-profit research institute to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the benefit of humanity and agreed to open-source AGI technology, but the other party did not keep the promise. He also criticized that "OpenAI has become a subsidiary of MS" and demanded that the for-profit business be stopped and AGI technology be open-sourced.

However, he withdrew that lawsuit a day before the trial started in June. At that time, Musk's side did not disclose the reason for withdrawing the lawsuit. The background for filing the lawsuit again this time is also unknown. After Musk's first lawsuit, OpenAI rebutted through blog posts in March, stating that Musk supported OpenAI's plan to become a for-profit company in 2017 and disclosed related emails.

An OpenAI spokesperson said, "The first lawsuit filed by Musk was later withdrawn," and "As we said, the past emails he sent still stand as evidence." Musk, a major investor at OpenAI's founding, stepped down from the board in 2018 and established the AI startup xAI last year. xAI recently succeeded in raising $6 billion in funding.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.