Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI, citing breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and unfair business practices. Musk alleges that OpenAI’s collaboration with Microsoft prioritizes profits for Microsoft over the betterment of humanity, contrary to the company’s original mission of developing public, open-source artificial general intelligence (AGI).
In a case filed in a San Francisco court, Musk is requesting that OpenAI, including its president Gregory Brockman CEO Sam Altman, and Microsoft be barred from profiting off the company’s AGI technology.
The Whole Elon Musk vs Sam Altman Scenario
Elon Musk and Sam Altman co-established OpenAI back, in 2015. While OpenAI introduced its AGI tool GPT 4 in March 2023 only offering up to GPT 3.5 models for free. The GPT 4 powered tools are accessible via subscription, which Musk argues contradicts OpenAIs mission of providing technology for the good rather than commercial gain.
Elon Musk points out that the internal workings of GPT 4 are only known to OpenAI and Microsoft making it a closed source and straying from OpenAI’s values. Elon Musk raises concerns about Altman’s removal as CEO in 2023. Subsequent reinstatement, alleging that Microsoft influenced board members to step down following Altman’s dismissal. Musk believes that the current board lacks the technological expertise in AI compared to members who support and comprehend the technology.
Musk’s disapproval of OpenAI monetizing AI is not unheard of as he has previously voiced his worries on social media platforms. Despite his stance against OpenAI’s practices, Musk launched his own AI company called xAI while also being involved with companies like Neuralink and Optimus focused on AI advancements.
According to details from Walter Isaacson’s book about Musk, there seems to have been a standing conflict between Musk and Altman. This conflict originated from Musk’s idea to integrate OpenAI, with Tesla, a proposition that Altman and other board members did not support. This dispute eventually resulted in Musk leaving OpenAI in 2018.
Despite the split, Musk remained committed to AI development, establishing ventures like Neuralink, Optimus, and Dojo. He sought to integrate AI into Tesla vehicles, leading to the recruitment of OpenAI’s computer vision specialist Andrej Karpathy. Meanwhile, OpenAI launched a commercial division, introducing the widely-used chatbot ChatGPT.
