Elon Musk has initiated legal proceedings against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, along with others, alleging a breach of contractual agreements dating back to the establishment of the ChatGPT-maker in 2015.
Filed in San Francisco, the lawsuit contends that the once non-profit organization, conceived for advancing artificial intelligence (AI) for humanity, has deviated from its altruistic origins.
Altman and Greg Brockman initially approached Musk to create an open-source entity dedicated to developing AI for the greater good, but Musk claims OpenAI’s shift towards profit-seeking ventures violates the original agreement.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but resigned from its board in 2018, is renowned for his involvement in groundbreaking ventures such as Tesla and his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October 2022.
This legal dispute arises as ChatGPT, OpenAI’s flagship chatbot, gains rapid success, becoming the world’s fastest-growing software application within six months of its November 2022 launch.
The bot’s success has sparked competition among tech giants and startups alike, with applications spanning various industries from document summarization to computer code generation.
