Against Microsoft and Sam Altman: Elon Musk withdraws lawsuit against OpenAI
Elon Musk filed a lawsuit in the spring because OpenAI is allegedly no longer complying with a founding agreement. He has now withdrawn it.
(Image: photosince/Shutterstock.com)
Elon Musk is dropping the lawsuit against OpenAI, according to a document filed with the court. No reasons for the decision are given in the document. The move comes just one day after the US billionaire fiercely criticized Apple's cooperation with the AI company. According to CNBC, the court in San Francisco has scheduled a hearing for today, Wednesday, to decide whether to grant the request to withdraw the lawsuit. With the lawsuit, Musk allegedly wanted to ensure that OpenAI would once again adhere to the founding agreement and develop an "AGI for the benefit of humanity and not for personal gain". This goal was deviated from after the billion-euro deal with Microsoft.
Lawsuit as self-promotion for Elon Musk
The US billionaire filed the lawsuit at the beginning of the year, mainly against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and then withdrew from the project before it became the profit-oriented company that is now at the center of the AI hype. Musk had claimed that the targeted AGI (for "Artifical General Intelligence", i.e. AI technology that is superior to humans) was perhaps the "greatest existential threat we face today". OpenAI is no longer working for the good of humanity, but for maximum profits. The lawsuit accused Altman of breach of contract, unfair competition and breach of fiduciary duties, among other things.
OpenAI has denied the accusations, with one top manager even suggesting that they were due to Musk's regret at no longer being part of the project. He now has his own AI company, xAI, which competes with OpenAI. According to CNBC, the lawsuit itself was on shaky ground because the allegedly breached founding agreement was not a formal document signed by all parties involved. In addition, Musk used the majority of the lawsuit to remind the world of his own role in the founding of OpenAI. It was therefore more a case of self-promotion, the US portal quotes an expert. The retraction now seems to confirm this assessment. Musk himself has not yet commented.
(mho)