OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, turned down an unsolicited offer of $97.4 billion from a consortium led by Elon Musk to purchase OpenAI, the nonprofit owner of ChatGPT.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI alongside Altman in 2015, has claimed that Altman’s attempts to transform the company into a for-profit organisation undermine its founding goal of developing artificial intelligence for humanity’s benefit.
Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, Musk has pursued legal action against OpenAI, including a request made to a federal court in November to halt the company’s proposed restructuring.
The suit, which now contains 26 legal claims spanning 107 pages, highlights the growing divide between Musk and his former project.
Musk and Altman disagreed over OpenAI’s direction from the beginning, with the world’s richest man, Musk, accusing the organisation of moving away from its initial mission as a nonprofit dedicated to promoting humanity’s welfare with open-source and safety-oriented AI development.
OpenAI has refuted these allegations, attributing Musk’s criticisms to his unsuccessful bid to merge the company with Tesla.
Since its establishment as a nonprofit in 2015, OpenAI has amassed billions in outside funding, which includes a $13 billion investment from Microsoft.
In an updated lawsuit submitted in August 2024, Musk accused OpenAI of creating a “monopoly” with Microsoft, claiming that their partnership is designed to suppress competitors like xAI.
