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Elon Musk has voluntarily dismissed his lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. The lawsuit, filed in March, accused the AI startup of straying from its founding mission and has been a point of contention between Musk and OpenAI.
The dismissal, filed by Musk’s attorneys in San Francisco Court, was made without prejudice, allowing Musk the option to refile the complaint in the future. Notably, the filing did not disclose any potential settlement between the parties.
Musk, who serves as the CEO of Tesla Inc. and X Corp., had previously taken legal action against OpenAI, asserting that the company strayed from its founding values after he exited. Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI in 2015, initially aimed for the organisation to advance artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the betterment of all humanity.
However, following his departure in 2018 due to disagreements over leadership, Musk alleged that OpenAI’s focus had pivoted towards profitability at the expense of its original altruistic mission.
The lawsuit accused OpenAI of betraying its founding mission by partnering with Microsoft and profiting significantly from multi-billion dollar investments. Musk’s complaint stated, “The company has become a closed, for-profit partner of the world’s largest corporation, thereby personally enriching the Defendants.”
In response to the lawsuit, OpenAI published a statement explaining the situation. The company said that developing AGI will require much more resources than anticipated and highlighted Musk’s recommendation for an initial $1 billion funding commitment to OpenAI.
The dismissal’s timing is significant, as it came just a day before a judge was scheduled to hear arguments regarding OpenAI’s motion to dismiss the case, notes Bloomberg Law.
Musk has been an outspoken critic of the potential dangers posed by unchecked AGI. However, OpenAI and others, including Meta, are moving forward with the project.
In response to what he perceived as OpenAI’s departure from its original mission, Musk established his own AI company, xAI, which has developed the chatbot Grok to compete with OpenAI’s widely-used ChatGPT.
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