Elon Musk withdraws lawsuit against OpenAI over "founder agreement," former allies become adversaries

Tesla CEO Elon Musk withdrew the breach of contract lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. This move came a day before a federal judge was set to determine the fate of the case.

On Tuesday, Musk's lawyers filed a request with the San Francisco Superior Court, seeking to dismiss the lawsuit without prejudice and reserving the right to refile it without prejudice. Musk did not issue a public statement regarding the dismissal.

This development follows Musk's public criticism of Apple's collaboration with OpenAI. Musk threatened that if Apple were to integrate OpenAI technology, his company would ban Apple products.

In March of this year, Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, Altman, and OpenAI's President, Greg Brockman. He alleged that OpenAI deviated from its founding mission of developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, accusing the organization of becoming profit-driven and secretive, especially in the design of GPT-4 and its exclusive licensing with Microsoft.

Musk's lawsuit aims to compel OpenAI to adhere to its founding principles. He referenced the company's California Articles of Incorporation, which require the provision of public benefits and open-source technology where applicable.

In response to Musk's lawsuit, OpenAI countered his claims, stating its intention to release internal emails sharing some facts about its relationship with Musk and intending to dismiss all of Musk's claims.

OpenAI released a blog post containing what are claimed to be emails from Musk to Greg Brockman, cc'ing Sam Altman.

In one message, Musk wrote, "We need to put in more digits than $100M to avoid sounding hopeless relative to Google or Facebook's spend." "I think we should say we're starting with a $1B funding commitment. That's true. I will personally guarantee anything other than what others can't provide."

In another email, Musk expressed concerns about OpenAI's funding model, stating that it cannot compete with companies like Google, valued at $800 billion. Musk said, "In my view, OpenAI is currently burning cash, and the funding model does not scale to seriously compete with Google (an $800B company)." He cautioned that continued open research might inadvertently aid competitors as they could easily replicate and scale any progress made.

OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever also voiced concerns about the open-source approach. In an email, he warned that publicly disclosing all research could lead to misuse by malicious actors. Sutskever wrote, "If a hard takeoff happens, and safe AI turns out to be harder to build than unsafe AI, then by [open-sourcing] everything, we could make it easy for those with less scruples to use a lot of hardware to build unsafe AI." He suggested that AI might face a challenging takeoff.

Last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was dismissed from the company amidst controversy. Reports indicated that the board had lost confidence in Altman's leadership abilities, and Musk suggested that OpenAI might have developed something potentially dangerous for humanity. However, this situation lasted only a few days, and Altman's position was reinstated the following week.

This dismissal marks the latest in a series of disputes between Musk and OpenAI. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and claims significant responsibility for its early success, including recruiting key personnel.

Last year, Musk launched xAI, a competitive AI developer. xAI introduced its first chatbot, Grok, sparking a public debate between Musk and Altman through their respective chatbots.

Altman mocked Musk's recent release of xAI AI. Musk, not one to shy away from a challenge, responded with a post purportedly from Grok.

"GPT-4? More like GPT-Snore!" Musk's post read. "When it comes to humor, GPT-4 is about as amusing as a screen door on a submarine."

Grok's response also targets OpenAI's attempts to cleanse its AI platform following allegations of racism, bias, and misinformation surrounding ChatGPT since its launch last year.

Despite the dismissal of the lawsuit, OpenAI continues to face ongoing scrutiny of its safety and security practices. Recently, several key executives have resigned, criticizing the focus on "shiny products" over cautious AI development.

In response, OpenAI established a new Safety Committee, including leadership from Altman.

Former Allies Turned Adversaries

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman once considered Elon Musk his "mentor." Over the years, Altman relied on Musk's reputation and wealth to drive OpenAI's development, joining forces to challenge Google's leading position in artificial intelligence.

Musk also played a crucial role in recruiting AI scientist Ilya Sutskever, who previously worked at Google, to join OpenAI. To attract and retain top talent, OpenAI offered new employees equity in Tesla and SpaceX, as well as the opportunity to benefit from investments made by Y Combinator.

Although Musk no longer directly funds OpenAI, his relationship with Altman has not completely severed. They continue to discuss topics related to artificial intelligence and have expressed support for each other on several occasions publicly.

The launch of ChatGPT escalated the dispute between the two, with Musk concerned that the technology could accelerate the dangerous race to develop powerful AI, posing potential risks to human society, leading him to announce cutting off OpenAI's access to data on the X platform.

After Musk filed the lawsuit, Altman wrote a memo to his employees: "It is indeed confusing to see the viewpoint that benefiting humanity and entrepreneurship are somewhat contradictory. I still miss the old Musk."