Elon Musk revives lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

Elon Musk has revived a lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman on Monday, saying that the firm put profits and commercial interests ahead of the public good.

The new lawsuit is the latest attempt by Musk to oppose the company he co-founded in 2015. He alleges that once OpenAI's technology started to transform generative artificial intelligence, Altman "flipped the narrative and proceeded to cash in."

OpenAI and Musk did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comments.


The suit seeks a judicial determination that OpenAI's license to Microsoft to use its AI models is null and void. Musk also contends that the OpenAI's language models are outside the scope of the company's partnership with Microsoft.

OpenAI has a licensing partnership with Microsoft, under which the big tech giant invests billions of dollars into the startup in exchange for using its large language models for its computing services.

In June, Musk withdrew an earlier lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman that had accused them of abandoning the startup's original mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity rather than for profit.

Attorneys for Musk had asked the California state court to dismiss the suit, originally filed in February, without providing a reason for the move.

In the case filed in February, Musk had said that OpenAI's three founders had originally agreed to work on AI in a way that would "benefit humanity."