Elon Musk seeks removal of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as trial looms

AUSTIN, Texas – Mr Elon Musk is seeking to have OpenAI chief executive and board member Sam Altman removed from his roles at the artificial intelligence start-up as part of the billionaire’s legal challenge to the ChatGPT maker’s conversion to a for-profit company.

Mr Musk said in a court filing on April 7 that the goal of his lawsuit is to “unwind OpenAI’s for-profit conversation and restructuring”, which he said would involve removing Mr Altman and president Greg Brockman from their leadership positions. He is also seeking a court order restoring the firm’s status as a non-profit research organisation.

The world’s richest person also said in the filing that he wants any damages he may win, when he faces off with Mr Altman and OpenAI at a jury trial starting later in April, to be awarded to the start-up’s charitable arm.

“The remedies Musk intends to seek are strictly tied to his purpose in bringing this lawsuit: to prevent the subordination of a public charity – one he co-founded and for which he was the primary supporter during its formative years – to private, for-profit interests,” he said in the filing.

Mr Musk is suing OpenAI and Microsoft over claims that the start-up abandoned its founding mission when it took billions of dollars in backing from the software stalwart and planned its restructuring.

Previously, Mr Musk indicated that he planned to seek as much as US$134 billion (S$171 billion) in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft.

The filing comes a day after Mr Jason Kwon, chief strategy officer at OpenAI, urged the attorneys-general of California and Delaware to investigate Mr Musk for potential “improper and anti-competitive behaviour” in his efforts to block the firm’s restructuring.

Mr Musk co-founded OpenAI with Mr Altman and others in 2015, but the former business partners have become bitter foes in recent years. Mr Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018 and, in 2023, co-founded the artificial intelligence company xAI, which has become one of OpenAI’s main rivals.

Last February, OpenAI rejected Mr Musk’s unsolicited bid to acquire the assets of the nonprofit that controls the company for US$97.4 billion. Months later, the company completed its for-profit restructuring plan, paving the way for it to raise more capital and potentially go public.

Mr Altman has denounced Mr Musk’s lawsuit challenging the OpenAI restructuring as a weaponisation of the legal system to slow down a competitor. BLOOMBERG