When Elon Musk dropped the lawsuit against OpenAI a few months back, we thought that it was the end of that chaotic story. However, that’s not the case, as Musk is moving to sue OpenAI… for the fourth time. This time, Musk is suing OpenAI to stop it from becoming a for-profit company.
Elon Musk’s list of complaints is pretty much the same as before. For those who don’t know, Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI back in 2015, and he was involved with the company until 2018. He left because of a disagreement with the company’s direction. Through his numerous lawsuits, however, we found out that Musk was in agreement with what the company was planning. So, it’s a bit tough to really know why he left.
According to the lawsuits, Elon Musk believes that OpenAI is no longer developing AI for everyone. He believes that the company has made a shift toward being a for-profit company. He used its close partnership with Microsoft as an example. Musk says that OpenAI has basically become a profit machine for Microsoft. He wants to the government to do something about this partnership. Also, he wants OpenAI to make its model open-source.
Now, Elon Musk is suing OpenAI to stop it from becoming a for-profit company
OpenAI just received a $150 billion valuation, and it earned more than $3 billion in revenue this year. However, it hasn’t made a dime of profit. The company still relies on money from investors to pay the bills. OpenAI company is looking to change this down the road, as it announced its plans to convert to a for-profit company. It plans to complete this transformation within the next couple of years.
However, Elon Musk wants this to change. He filed for a preliminary injunction to stop this transformation from taking place. This injunction is to “preserve what is left of OpenAI’s nonprofit character,” according to the lawsuit. He wants OpenAI to remain a non-profit company.
So, he’s pretty much singing the same tune as before, but there are a few things different this time around. For starters, this 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. Also, the lawsuit names two new plaintiffs. One is Shivon Zilis, a Neuralink executive and former OpenAI board member. The other one is xAI itself.
Elon’s list
According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs is primarily suing OpenAI for four main reason. Firstly, OpenAI is changing into a for-profit company (which we already know). Second, OpenAI encourages investors not to invest in other companies. Third, they accuse OpenAI of wrongfully obtaining sensitive information through Microsoft. Lastly, “Causing OpenAI to do business with organizations in which any defendant has a “material financial interest.”
Since this lawsuit is just getting underway, we don’t know if the court will rule in favor of Elon and his team. For all we know, he could drop the case again. We’ll just need to wait and see what happens.