Tesla CEO Elon Musk has again initiated legal proceedings against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman in US federal court. In the lawsuit, Musk claims that OpenAI’s actions violate his rights and interests, and that he was misled when founding OpenAI.
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At the heart of Musk’s claims is his belief that Altman and current OpenAI President Greg Brockman tricked him into co-founding an artificial intelligence company on the basis that the company would be a non-profit.
The lawsuit alleges that after Musk joined the project and invested millions of dollars, he was “betrayed by Altman and his [Microsoft] allies” who “created an opaque network of commercial OpenAI affiliates engaged in rampant self-enrichment.” “The treachery and deceit are of Shakespearean proportions,” the lawsuit states.
Interestingly, the claims in the new lawsuit are similar to another lawsuit filed not long ago by Musk against OpenAI and Altman in a Northern California district court, which the head of Tesla and SpaceX ultimately withdrew. At the time, Musk expressed concern about the development of artificial intelligence and its potential threats to humanity, and also argued that OpenAI, since moving into the commercial sphere, had deviated from its original goals and principles, which, in his opinion, compromised the safety and ethics of technology AI. “OpenAI no longer adheres to the principles that were laid down when it was created,” Musk said, pointing out that the organization’s commercial interests prevail over public ones.
The lawsuit also alleges that Microsoft was involved in this situation. While describing OpenAI as a non-profit organization with no shareholders, Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in the company, “sought to gain leverage in other ways, particularly by calling on OpenAI to use and become one with its cloud computing system Azure.”
While Musk has expressed his affection for Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, the company’s values and OpenAI’s do not align, the lawsuit says.