Elon Musk has asked a federal judge to block Sam Altman’s OpenAI from completing plans to become a for-profit entity – arguing that it would cause “irreparable harm” to the public.
In an appearance late Friday in US District Court in San Francisco, Musk accused Altman of violating antitrust law through OpenAI’s collaboration with Microsoft, which has poured billions into the ChatGPT creator.
“Plaintiffs and the public need a break,” the filing said. “OpenAI’s path from a nonprofit to a for-profit behemoth is littered with per se anticompetitive practices, flagrant violations of its charitable mission, and rampant self-dealing.”
“He cannot worry about the market as a Frankenstein, held together by whatever corporate form serves the monetary interests of Microsoft and Altman at any given moment,” the document added.
The request for a preliminary injunction marked an escalation in Musk’s long feud with Altman. The two tech titans once collaborated as co-founders of OpenAI, but have since become bitter rivals with competing artificial intelligence projects.
The order was filed on behalf of lawyers for Musk, his artificial intelligence startup xAi and former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis — an executive at brain chip company Neuralink who is also the mother of three of Musk’s children. Musk.
Musk’s legal team expressed concern about OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft.
“Any freedom OpenAI might have had due to antitrust law as a purported charity it chose to give up when it submitted to Microsoft for profit,” the filing said. “So OpenAI has to play by the same rules as everyone else.”
OpenAI criticized Musk’s latest bid in a statement, calling it “totally without merit” and accusing it of recycling arguments from previous legal challenges.
Musk was initially one of OpenAI’s main investors, but ended his involvement after clashing with Altman. The head of X, Tesla and SpaceX first filed suit against OpenAI in March, only to withdraw the complaint and bring it back in August.
The updated complaint described Musk’s dispute with Altman as a “schoolbook tale of altruism versus greed.”
Musk accused Altman of tricking him into forgiving more than $44 million to fund OpenAI in its early days with a promise of developing safe AI for the benefit of humanity, only to abandon that mission to enriching himself and major investors, including Microsoft.
The suit was expanded last month when Musk’s lawyers cited federal antitrust complaints and added Microsoft as a defendant.
Musk has also stepped up his rhetoric against Altman personally, calling him “Swindly Sam” in a recent X post.
Musk’s attempt to block OpenAI’s plans is another wrinkle in what has already been a complicated process for Altman and his allies.
The firm is planning to restructure itself as a public benefit corporation, in which its executives would weigh social impact and profit when making decisions. Musk’s XAI and Amazon-backed Anthropic use the same framework.
The non-profit arm that has governed OpenAI since 2015 will continue to exist, but will no longer be in control.
OpenAI’s latest $6.6 billion fundraising round included a condition that allows investors like Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital to renegotiate the company’s valuation — or even get their money back entirely — if the transition from nonprofit to for-profit isn’t completed within two years.
OpenAI is said to be pursuing the change in part to insulate Altman from “hostile takeovers” by activist investors or executives — like the one that briefly led to his ouster from an earlier version of the company’s board of directors late last year.
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