In March, Elon Musk, one of the original co-founders of OpenAI, filed a lawsuit against the company and its CEO, Sam Altman. At the time, Musk claimed the legal action was due to OpenAI allegedly breaching its contract by trying to turn the business into a for-profit company rather than staying as a non-profit organization.
OpenAI quickly responded to Musk's lawsuit, claiming that he actually wanted the business to be a company that made money. OpenAI also claimed Musk wanted to be the CEO of the company as well. In June, Musk withdrew the lawsuit but offered no reason for doing so.
Earlier today, Musk decided to file another lawsuit against OpenAI, along with Altman and its president, Greg Brockman. The New York Times reports that this new legal action is similar to the first lawsuit.
It claims OpenAI, along with Altman and Brockman, broke a promise to offer the code for OpenAI's models as an open-source project. Instead, it gave an exclusive license to Microsoft, which has used it as the basis for its generative AI services like Copilot.
Musk's attorney, Marc Toberoff, told The New York Times that this new lawsuit claims OpenAI violates US racketeering laws. Toberoff alleges that OpenAI conspired to defraud Musk. Toberoff also addressed Musk's first lawsuit, stating, "The previous suit lacked teeth — and I don’t believe in the tooth fairy."
Another claim made by Musk's new lawsuit is that Microsoft would no longer have the rights to license OpenAI's models if the company believes it has achieved A.G.I. (Artificial General Intelligence). The lawsuit asks the court to determine if OpenAI has already reached A.G.I. levels with its models and, if it has, if the current agreement with Microsoft can then be cut. So far, OpenAI has yet to comment on Musk's new lawsuit.
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