Elon Musk says proceeds from any legal win against OpenAI will go to charity

Elon Musk said on X that proceeds from any legal victory he secures against OpenAI will go to charity. His lawsuit, accusing the AI firm of straying from its founding principles, is set to start in April.

"Btw, the proceeds of any legal victory in the OpenAI case will be donated to charity. I will in no way enrich myself," he wrote in a post on X.



Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015 with Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, as a non-profit lab to develop AI for humanity's benefit, with open research publication. Musk's suit, filed in California in early 2024, claims that he contributed over $40 million to the AI company, expecting it to stay non-profit and open-source. He alleges that the company went against the founding principles when it formed a for-profit arm and partnered closely with Microsoft.

Both sides have brandished their versions of events in the run-up to the trial. Musk has revealed some alleged internal documents on X, including OpenAI president Greg Brockman’s personal files, stating that they clearly show OpenAI leadership had plans to go for-profit well before they announced the intention publicly, and Musk and other stakeholders were deliberately misled.

OpenAI hit back, posting its own notes from the calls that Musk refers to in the filings, which include his exact quotes, a large chunk of which is missing from the court filings.

"elon is cherry-picking things to make greg look bad, but the full story is that elon was pushing for a new structure, and greg and ilya spent a lot of time trying to figure out if they could meet his demands," Altman wrote on X, with a link to a detailed blog post by OpenAI, showing more call notes with Musk's quotes.

As per Musk's complaint, OpenAI is described as a "closed-source de facto subsidiary" of Microsoft and advanced models like GPT-4 are said to prioritise profits over public good, with staff and IP moved to the profit entity.

Among the remedies sought, Musk is asking the court to require OpenAI to make key technologies more widely accessible and to prevent the company and Microsoft from using certain AI systems solely for private commercial benefit. He is also urging the court to recognise GPT‑4 and related projects as forms of artificial general intelligence, which he says would put them beyond Microsoft’s exclusive licensing rights.

OpenAI has rejected the characterisation of its work and mission in the lawsuit, telling staff in an internal memo reported by US media that many of Musk’s claims are inaccurate.