Elon Musk drops lawsuit accusing ChatGPT maker OpenAI of breaching founding mission

San Francisco - Mr Elon Musk dropped a lawsuit alleging that OpenAI and its chief executive officer Sam Altman breached a founding promise in 2023 by prioritising profits over humanity – without saying why.

The billionaire withdrew his complaint a day before a California judge was set to hear OpenAI’s request for dismissal. Mr Musk had accused the company of becoming a “de facto subsidiary” of Microsoft in violation of a founding agreement to be a non-profit that developed artificial intelligence (AI) “for the benefit of humanity”.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Mr Musk have been engaged in a well-publicised battle since well before the court case. Mr Musk was an early backer of the start-up and part of its founding team, before he had a falling out with the company.

Mr Musk recently raised US$6 billion (S$8.1 billion) for his own AI company that he has positioned as an alternative to OpenAI. OpenAI had argued that Mr Musk would use pre-trial fact-finding and information sharing known as discovery in the San Francisco case to get access to its “proprietary records and technology”.

OpenAI also contended that Mr Musk had previously backed the company’s plans to become a for-profit business and insisted it raise “billions.” OpenAI denied that there was ever a founding agreement for it to breach or that it had promised to make its technology open source, as Mr Musk has claimed.

On June 10, Mr Musk said he would ban Apple devices from his companies if OpenAI’s AI software is integrated at the operating system level, calling the tie-up a security risk.

OpenAI declined to comment.

In a court filing on June 10, Mr Musk said he was dismissing his complaint “without prejudice” – meaning that he could try to revive it.

Representatives for Mr Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment. BLOOMBERG