Elon Musk has initiated legal action against Microsoft-backed OpenAl and its CEO, Sam Altman, along with others, asserting that they have veered away from the organization’s original mission to develop artificial intelligence (AI) “for the benefit of humanity broadly.”
In a lawsuit filed on Thursday in a San Francisco court, Musk’s legal team claimed that the tech mogul was approached in 2015 by Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman with the proposal to establish a nonprofit laboratory dedicated to advancing artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the betterment of humanity.
Having been a co-founder of OpenAI in 2015, Musk resigned from the board of the organization in 2018, after previously expressing concerns about the potential dangers of AI, stating that it is “potentially more dangerous than nukes.”
Clash of Tech Titans in AI Legal Battle
The lawsuit filing stated, “To this day, OpenAI, Inc.’s website continues to profess that its charter is to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity. In reality, however, OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft.”
According to Musk’s legal team, OpenAI’s shift towards maximizing profits for Microsoft contradicts the initial agreement.
“Under its new Board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity,” the filing asserted.
The lawsuit submitted by Musk aims “to compel OpenAI to adhere to the Founding Agreement and return to its mission to develop AGI for the benefit of humanity, not to personally benefit the individual Defendants and the largest technology company in the world.”
Microsoft, currently under scrutiny from EU antitrust regulators over its reported $13 billion investment in OpenAI, recently unveiled a new partnership with French start-up Mistral AI.
The U.S. tech giant announced on Monday its investment in Mistral AI, often seen as Europe’s counterpart to OpenAI, aiming to facilitate “new commercial opportunities” and global market expansion.
