Elon Musk has amended a lawsuit against artificial intelligence company OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, seeking financial restitution from the company and its primary investor, Microsoft. A filing submitted on June 7 in San Francisco Superior Court specifies that Musk is seeking the disgorgement of “wrongful gains,” which his legal team calculates could amount to tens of billions of dollars.
The amended complaint is the latest development in a lawsuit Musk first filed in February. The original suit alleged that OpenAI, which Musk co-founded in 2015 as a non-profit organization, breached its founding agreement by pursuing a for-profit model in partnership with Microsoft. The lawsuit claims this shift betrayed the company’s mission to develop artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
According to the new filing, Musk is asking the court to compel OpenAI and Microsoft to surrender profits obtained through what the suit describes as unfair business practices. While a precise figure is not mandated, the document cites Microsoft’s own valuation of its stake in OpenAI, which a Microsoft executive testified was $134 billion in a separate federal antitrust hearing. The filing argues this figure represents the gains derived from the alleged breach of contract.
The lawsuit seeks to establish that Altman, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and Microsoft worked to transform the non-profit research lab into a closed-source, for-profit entity. In addition to financial claims, the suit asks the court to require OpenAI to make its research and technology, including the code for its most advanced AI models like GPT-4, available to the public.
OpenAI has previously contested the lawsuit’s central claims. In a March blog post responding to the initial filing, the company released past emails from Musk. OpenAI stated these communications show Musk was aware of and supported the plan to create a for-profit arm to raise necessary capital. The company also asserted that Musk had proposed merging OpenAI with his electric vehicle company, Tesla, and sought majority control.
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars into OpenAI and integrates its technology into products across its ecosystem. The amended complaint names Microsoft as a party that has substantially profited from OpenAI’s shift away from its original non-profit structure.
Representatives for OpenAI and Microsoft have not issued public statements regarding the amended complaint. The case continues in San Francisco Superior Court.
