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Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that the multibillion-dollar alliance between ChatGPT and Microsoft has harmed the startup's original mission of building artificial intelligence systems for the benefit of humanity.
“OpenAI, Inc. has turned into a de facto closed-source subsidiary of the world’s largest technology company: Microsoft,” Musk’s lawyers wrote in a filing filed in a San Francisco court on Thursday.
“Under its new board, it is not just developing, but improving AGI to maximize Microsoft’s profits, not to benefit humanity.”
OpenAI declined to comment. Musk could not immediately be reached for comment.
The tech billionaire was a co-founder of OpenAI in 2015, when it started as a nonprofit committed to safely building “artificial general intelligence” — artificial intelligence capable of the same level of intelligence as humans, or AI. Level up.
However, Musk left OpenAI's board three years later, shortly before the startup created a for-profit arm through which Microsoft invested about $13 billion. The alliance is being reviewed by competition watchdogs in the US, EU and UK.
Microsoft President Brad Smith said this week that the two companies are “very important partners” but that “Microsoft does not control OpenAI.”
OpenAI has become a pioneer in generative artificial intelligence — software that can produce text, images and code in seconds — which analysts believe will shake up industries around the world.
Other big tech competitors, such as Google and Amazon, are investing heavily in building this technology.
