Image source, Getty Images
- author, Joao da Silva
- Role, Business reporter
Elon Musk unexpectedly asked a California court to withdraw a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, which accused them of abandoning the company’s founding mission of developing artificial intelligence (AI) for the benefit of humanity.
The lawsuit filed by the billionaire’s lawyers demanded that the case, which has been ongoing for months, be dropped without providing any reason for this step.
This came just one day before the court heard the ChatGPT developer’s request to dismiss the case.
BBC News has contacted Mr Musk’s lawyers and OpenAI for comment.
The latest lawsuit asked for the case to be dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning Mr. Musk could still reactivate it at a later stage.
Tesla’s boss filed the lawsuit against OpenAI at the end of February this year, arguing that the company he helped found in 2015 had deviated from its altruistic goals to focus on making money.
OpenAI responded that Musk had previously supported the idea of a for-profit structure, and even proposed a merger with his electric car company, Tesla.
The dispute intensified earlier this week after Apple revealed a partnership with OpenAI to enhance its Siri voice assistant and operating systems with OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.
Following the announcement, Mr Musk posted several messages on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, criticizing the association.
One post ended with the words: “Apple has no idea what actually happens once you hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river.”
However, investors appear to be welcoming the news, as the market value of Apple’s shares has risen to a record high above $3 trillion.
Musk created his own artificial intelligence company, called xAI, in July 2023, which he said aims to “understand reality.”
In November of that year, xAI launched Grok, a chatbot with “a bit of humour”, in an attempt to compete with the likes of ChatGPT.
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