Elon Musk's Renewed Legal Battle Against OpenAI and Its CEO

On August 5th local time, Elon Musk once again filed a lawsuit against ChatGPT manufacturer OpenAI in the federal court in Northern California, reigniting the legal dispute that was halted earlier this year due to similar accusations. In the lawsuit, Musk restated that OpenAI and its two founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, prioritized commercial interests over the public interest, seriously violating the original intention and contract of the company when it was founded.

He also claimed that the two had "conspired to commit extortion" against Musk and demanded that the court deem OpenAI's license to Microsoft for the large model invalid. Musk's lawyer, Marc Toberoff, said the main reason for relaunching the lawsuit was that the previous lawsuit was not forceful enough.

As early as February 29th of this year, Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in the San Francisco Superior Court, suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman for breaching the contract. Musk claimed in the previous lawsuit that Altman and OpenAI violated an agreement reached when the AI research company was established, which was to develop technology for the benefit of humanity rather than for profit. He alleged that OpenAI's relationship with tech giant Microsoft has undermined the company's original goal of dedicated to public and open-source general artificial intelligence (AGI). Court documents at that time showed that Musk made accusations including breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and unfair business practices against OpenAI and demanded that the company resume being open source. In addition, he also requested the court to issue an injunction to prevent OpenAI, Brockman, Altman, and Microsoft from profiting from the company's artificial general intelligence technology.

In response to Musk's lawsuit, OpenAI once published an official statement on its official website, stating that the company firmly opposes all of Musk's unfounded accusations and will take legal measures to safeguard the company's rights and interests. OpenAI attached internal email copies between OpenAI executives and Musk from 2015 to 2018 in the statement. The content of the emails showed that at the end of 2017, OpenAI and Musk decided that the next step was to create a for-profit entity. Musk hoped to obtain majority ownership and initial board control and serve as the CEO. However, during the negotiations on the profit terms, the two sides failed to reach an agreement. OpenAI believed that any individual's absolute control over OpenAI would be contrary to the company's original intention and mission. Eventually, halfway through the negotiations, Musk withdrew all his funds.