Musk’s complaint is similar to what he’s been having issues with previously. Elon Musk co-founded OpenAi back in 2015 and until 2018, he was involved with the company – he reportedly left because of disagreement with the company’s direction.
According to the lawsuits, Musk believes OpenAI is no longer developing AI for everyone and has reportedly made a shift towards being a for-profit company. He also wants OpenAI to make its model open-source.
OpenAI recently received a $150 billion valuation, and it reportedly earned more than $3 billion in revenue this year, but hasn’t made a profit. The company still relies on money from investors to pay its expenses.
OpenAI is looking to change this and has plans to convert to a for-profit company in the next couple of years.
But Elon Musk doesn’t seem to agree with this direction. The new lawsuit names new plaintiffs and defendants. The new defendants include OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, Microsoft, LinkedIn board member Reid Hoffman, and Microsoft VP Dee Templeton.
There are also two new plaintiffs: Shivon Zilis, a Neuralink executive and former OpenAI board member, and xAI itself (xAI is a startup company that works with Artificial Intelligence and was founded by Musk in 2023).
Another issue Musk has with OpenAI is that it is allegedly encouraging investors not to invest in other companies, and also, that it has allegedly wrongfully obtained sensitive info through Microsoft.
Of course, the lawsuit is just getting underway so we’re not certain if the court will rule in favor of Elon or not, or whether or not he would drop the case. Such lawsuits can take a lot of time so we may not know immediately what the outcome will be.
In my opinion, Musk’s concerns highlight an important debate about whether AI should prioritize public benefit or the demands of investors.