In this photo illustration, the logo of ‘OpenAI’ is displayed on a mobile phone screen in front of a computer screen displaying the photographs of Elon Musk and Sam Altman in Ankara, Turkiye on March 14, 2024.
Muhammed Selim Korkutata | Anadolu | Getty Images
Elon Musk has revived a lawsuit against Sam Altman in a federal court, alleging that the Tesla boss was manipulated into co-founding OpenAI, according to a court filing published on Monday.
The crux of Musk’s claims center around his view that he was “courted and deceived” by Altman and current OpenAI President Greg Brockman, into co-founding the artificial intelligence firm on the basis that it was a non-profit.
After Musk came on board and invested millions of dollars, the lawsuit claims he was “betrayed by Altman and his accomplices” as they, along with Microsoft, “established an opaque web of for-profit OpenAI affiliates, engaged in rampant self-dealing.”
“The perfidy and deceit are of Shakespearean proportions,” the lawsuit alleges.
The claims in the new lawsuit are similar to another lawsuit filed by Musk against OpenAI and Altman in California this year, which the Tesla and SpaceX boss ultimately dropped.
Musk has been very vocal over the past few years about his fear of artificial intelligence and the dangers it poses to humanity. Musk states in the latest lawsuit, filed in a district court in Northern California, that he was “manipulated” into co-founding OpenAI by Altman and Brockman who allegedly promised “that it would chart a safer, more open course than profit-driven tech giants.”
“Altman assured Musk that the non-profit structure guaranteed neutrality and a focus on safety and openness for the benefit of humanity, not shareholder value. But as it turns out, this was all hot-air philanthropy—the hook for Altman’s long con,” the lawsuit claims.
CNBC has reached out to Tesla, OpenAI and Microsoft for comment.
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