Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X/Twitter and CEO of Tesla, has withdrawn his breach of contract claims against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman.
According to the Financial Times, Musk filed the lawsuit three months ago in a San Francisco court, alleging that OpenAI had deviated from its original mission of benefiting humanity by forming a multibillion-dollar alliance with Microsoft. Musk claimed that OpenAI was developing “proprietary technology to maximize profits” for Microsoft, the world’s largest company with an $86 billion valuation.
OpenAI countered Musk’s allegations, dismissing them as “incoherent” and “frivolous.” In March, the company published a blog post that included Musk’s emails from the early days of their collaboration, suggesting Musk understood the need for substantial funding to support the development of AI models, such as the popular chatbot ChatGPT.
Musk’s relationship with OpenAI and Sam Altman has been strained since he co-founded the organization in 2015 and donated $44 million. Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018 due to disagreements with Altman over the organization’s research direction. In 2019, OpenAI established a for-profit arm that attracted significant investment from Microsoft.
The decision to drop the lawsuit coincides with Musk’s criticism of OpenAI’s new partnership with Apple. Musk recently expressed concerns on X/Twitter that integrating OpenAI’s technology into iPhones could lead to Apple devices being banned at his companies. He even suggested storing Apple devices in a Faraday cage upon entry.
