Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, has revived a legal action against OpenAI, arguing that the organisation abandoned its initial non-profit goal.
In an amended lawsuit, the suit includes new defendants, including Microsoft, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and former OpenAI board member and Microsoft VP Dee Templeton.
The updated complaint also includes additional plaintiffs: Shivon Zilis, a Neuralink executive and former OpenAI board member, and Musk’s AI firm, xAI.
The case accused OpenAI and Microsoft of establishing an AI monopoly and participating in “intensified” anticompetitive behaviour, citing “lavish compensation” proposals as an example.
Musk’s lawyers stated in the amended complaint, filed in a federal court in Northern California, that “OpenAI has attempted to starve competitors of AI talent by aggressively recruiting employees with offers of lavish compensation, and is on track to spend $1.5 billion on personnel for just 1,500 employees.”
Musk was one of the initial founders of OpenAI, a non-profit organisation dedicated to researching and developing AI for the benefit of humanity.
He departed the company in 2018 due to differences in its direction.
“xAI has been harmed by, without limitation … an inability to obtain compute from Microsoft on terms anywhere near as favourable as OpenAI receives … and the exclusive exchange between OpenAI and Microsoft of competitively sensitive information,” reads the complaint, filed late Thursday in federal court in Oakland, California.
The updated lawsuit marks the latest escalation between long-time rivals Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Musk initially sued OpenAI and cofounders Altman and Greg Brockman in March, accusing the business of jeopardising its nonprofit goal by collaborating with Microsoft, which has invested over $13 billion in the startup.
OpenAI responded to the lawsuit by describing it as “incoherent” and “contradictory.”
Musk, who helped build OpenAI in 2015, then dismissed his complaint without explanation.
He filed the most recent complaint in August, claiming that OpenAI has abandoned its primary objective to create.
We earlier reported that Google has complained to the European Commission (EC), contending that Microsoft coerces businesses to continue using its Azure cloud infrastructure through anti-competitive licensing practices.
