Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk took steps to dismiss his lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman. The lawsuit accused OpenAI of deviating from its original mission of developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity and not for profit. The lawsuit was originally filed in February, but Musk’s attorneys have now asked the California state court to dismiss it without providing a specific reason. The filing was made in San Francisco Superior Court, where a judge was set to hear OpenAI’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit the following day.
OpenAI and an attorney for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding this development. It’s worth noting that Musk dismissed his case without prejudice, indicating that he retains the option to refile it in the future. The lawsuit appeared to be the outcome of Musk’s long-standing disagreement with OpenAI, a startup he co-founded, which has since garnered significant attention for its generative AI with substantial financial backing from Microsoft.
In July, Musk established his own artificial intelligence startup, xAI, which secured $6 billion in series B funding in May, reaching a post-money valuation of $24 billion. Musk’s lawsuit alleged that Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman initially approached him with the vision of creating an open-source, non-profit organization. However, the lawsuit asserted that the startup, founded in 2015, has now shifted its focus to profit-making activities.
The lawsuit also mentioned OpenAI’s release of its most powerful language model, GPT-4, as a point of contention. According to the lawsuit, this release was seen as a departure from the founding agreement and a move towards prioritizing commercial interests.
