SAN FRANCISCO, California — Elon Musk has moved to dismiss his lawsuit against OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and its CEO, Sam Altman.
The lawsuit, which accused the company and Altman of abandoning OpenAI’s original mission of developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity and not for profit, was originally filed in February.
Attorneys representing Musk requested the California state court to dismiss the lawsuit without providing a reason for the move, according to a filing in San Francisco Superior Court.
The dismissal was made without prejudice, allowing Musk the option to refile the case at a later date.
A hearing was scheduled for Wednesday, where a Superior Court judge was set to hear OpenAI’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit.
Neither OpenAI nor Musk’s attorney responded immediately to requests for comment.
The lawsuit highlighted Musk’s long-standing opposition to the direction OpenAI has taken.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, has been critical of the company’s transition from its original open-source, non-profit foundation to a profit-driven entity supported by significant funding from Microsoft.
In the suit, Musk claimed that OpenAI “set the founding agreement aflame” by releasing GPT-4, its most powerful language model, which he argued contradicted the startup’s initial non-profit goals.
Musk sought a court order to compel OpenAI to make its research and technology publicly available and to prevent the company from using its assets for the financial benefit of Microsoft and others.
OpenAI countered these claims, describing the lawsuit as a “contrived attempt” by Musk to promote his own AI ventures.
“Seeing the remarkable technological advances OpenAI has achieved, Musk now wants that success for himself,” OpenAI’s attorneys stated.
This legal action was seen by many as part of a broader rivalry between Musk and OpenAI, particularly since Musk founded his own AI startup, xAI, last July.
xAI recently raised $6 billion in Series B funding, achieving a post-money valuation of $24 billion.
Despite the dismissal, the conflict between Musk and OpenAI underscores ongoing tensions in the rapidly evolving AI industry, where ethical considerations and profit motives often clash.
