The multibillionaire owner of Tesla and X, Elon Musk, is suing OpenAI, an artificial intelligence startup, claiming that the company put profit ahead of creating AI for the general public’s benefit.
Mr. Musk is suing OpenAI, which he co-founded, and its CEO, Sam Altman, for allegedly breaking a contract by not following through on its promise to carefully develop artificial intelligence and make the technology widely accessible.
According to a court document, the company that created the revolutionary generative AI chatbotChatGPT has “been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company, Microsoft.”
The legal action is the most recent in a string of challenges to Mr. Altman, who was removed from the OpenAI board of directors and briefly employed by Microsoft, the company’s largest shareholder, before being reinstated.
Board members and the founders of the massive AI company have been at odds over the company’s growing commercial interests since it was first established as a not-for-profit.
According to Mr. Musk’s lawsuit, OpenAI and its top executives have set that agreement “ablaze” and are “perverting” the company’s mission by forming a close relationship with Microsoft.
“Under its new board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI [artificial general intelligence] to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity”, stated in the filing.
