(Credit: Apu Gomes/Stringer via Getty Images)
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has renewed his legal battle against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. A new lawsuit filed in California on Monday alleges wire fraud resulting in a "pattern of racketeering activity," breaches of contract, and false advertising, among other claims.
The new suit was filed against Altman, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and OpenAI itself, as well as a slew of shell companies created by OpenAI. The 83-page document states that Musk invested over $44.5 million in OpenAI between May 2016 and September 2020, The Verge notes. Musk sent this money in smaller installments via wire transfers over the years under the belief that OpenAI would remain a nonprofit, open-source organization and focus on developing and sharing secure, artificial general intelligence (AGI) technology for the safety and betterment of humanity.
AGI is a hypothesized, more advanced form of AI that could be considered equal to or greater than human intelligence. When or whether AGI might actually come to fruition is still up for debate, however. In his lawsuit, Musk argues that OpenAI's ChatGPT-4, GPT-4 Turbo, and GPT-4o may be advanced enough to constitute AGI. (Ironically, Musk previously dubbed GPT-4 a "snore.") Because OpenAI is now for-profit, Musk says, the AI models are "shrouded in secrecy" for the financial benefit of Altman, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
Musk's suit alleges that because he submitted his investments via wire, OpenAI committed wire fraud and engaged in a "fraudulent scheme." Musk claims Altman is "brazenly self-dealing" through OpenAI, citing the AI firm's Reddit deal as one example because Reddit's subsequent stock bump enriched Altman's personal holdings by $69 million.
Musk ultimately alleges that OpenAI intentionally concealed its true plans and "actively deceived" the SpaceX and Tesla CEO, who believes his investment was wholly conditional on the AI firm staying true to its original, open-source mission.
Musk previously filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman back in March, alleging breach of contract because OpenAI has switched course from this founding mission. Roughly three months later, Musk dropped his original lawsuit. Musk's lawyers did not provide a reason for requesting the original lawsuit's dismissal.
Reached for comment, an OpenAI spokesperson tells PCMag: "As we said about Elon’s initial legal filing, which was subsequently withdrawn, Elon’s prior emails continue to speak for themselves."
Since Musk publicly disavowed OpenAI, he's created his own AI startup, xAI. Last month, xAI opened a massive computing facility in Memphis, Tennessee, with 100,000 Nvidia graphics cards to train the next version of its AI chatbot, Grok.
Editor's Note: This story was updated to include comment from OpenAI.