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Elon Musk has filed yet another motion against OpenAI, this time asking the court for an injunction to prevent OpenAI from becoming a fully for-profit enterprise.
As TechCrunch reports, the filing also seeks to stop OpenAI from telling its investors not to fund competitors, like his own start-up xAI. Musk's legal team claims that “irreparable harm” will be caused if the injunction isn’t granted.
“Plaintiffs and the public need a pause,” the filing says. “An injunction to preserve what is left of OpenAI’s nonprofit character, free from self-dealing, is the only appropriate remedy. If not, the OpenAI promised to Musk and the public will be long gone by the time the court reaches the merits.”
It adds that the "sheer number of affected parties would make it virtually impossible to reverse the charity’s conversion without causing widespread investor losses and market disruption."
The filing names OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, its President Greg Brockman, Microsoft and LinkedIn co-founder and former OpenAI board member Reid Hoffman, and Microsoft VP Dee Templeton.
The news comes as OpenAI is currently in talks with California regulators about transitioning to a for-profit structure, Bloomberg reports, which could also give Altman a 7% stake.
OpenAI launched in 2015 as a nonprofit, with Musk as a co-chair. He then left the board in 2018, with OpenAI saying the move would allow him to "eliminate a potential future conflict...as Tesla continues to become more focused on AI."
OpenAI then became a “capped-profit” firm in 2019, TechCrunch notes. In this structure, the nonprofit parts of the firm govern the for-profit subsidiary.
Musk first sued OpenAI and Altman in March, alleging breach of contract because OpenAI switched course from its founding mission. Roughly three months later, Musk dropped that lawsuit, but renewed the legal fight in August alleging wire fraud resulting in a "pattern of racketeering activity," breaches of contract, and false advertising, among other claims. In November, Musk's lawyers expanded the case to include OpenAI investor Microsoft.
In a statement provided to TechCrunch, an OpenAI spokesperson said: “Elon’s fourth attempt, which again recycles the same baseless complaints, continues to be utterly without merit,”
Musk has been increasingly critical of OpenAI since he left the board. He's also now one of its competitors because his xAI startup has a ChatGPT-like chatbot known as Grok. In September, he announced that xAI wants to expand its supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee, to 300,000 Nvidia GPUs by next summer. So this could all be sour grapes or an effort to gain a competitive edge, but the courts will have to decide that.