Tech company: OpenAI wants to defend itself against Musk's lawsuits over profit orientation

ChatGPT developer OpenAI has rejected Tesla boss Elon Musk ‘s allegations about what he sees as the company’s changing purpose. The Microsoft-backed company said in a blog post that it wanted to defend itself against all of Musk’s lawsuits against the start-up and announced that it would provide clarification on its part.

“We are sad that things have come to this with someone we deeply admired,” writes OpenAI. “Someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we would fail, founded a competitor, and then sued us when we began making significant progress toward OpenAI’s mission without him.”

Last week, Musk filed a lawsuit against the start-up he co-founded. He accuses OpenAI of breach of contract. The company is now focused on profit and no longer on developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, he argued. But that was the original goal. Major investor Microsoft is now benefiting from this, the lawsuit says. This is a “flagrant violation” of the founding agreement.

Accusation of attempted takeover

OpenAI, for its part, responded with accusations: In its blog entry, the start-up writes that Musk wanted the company to merge with the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla. They published an email saying that the start-up should stick with Tesla as a financier. According to OpenAI, the proposal came after Musk and OpenAI decided to create a for-profit company in 2017 to generate capital for the development of artificial general intelligence. Musk sought full control of OpenAI and the company’s top position, it is said.

“OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity, which means both developing safe and useful AGI and helping to create benefits for the masses,” the company writes. They are still on this path.

The dispute between Musk and OpenAI is an old one

OpenAI had already defended itself against Musk’s allegations. In an email to employees, management contradicted Musk’s accusation that the company was controlled by Microsoft. It also suggests that Musk may regret not being involved anymore after ChatGPT became so successful. ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that sparked a hype about artificial intelligence last year. Microsoft is a major investor in the start-up.

OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a non-profit research and development organization by Musk and technology investor Sam Altman, among others. Musk resigned from OpenAI’s board in 2018 amid disputes over merging several of his offices. In 2019, a for-profit subsidiary was established to attract outside investment.

ChatGPT developer OpenAI has rejected Tesla boss Elon Musk ‘s allegations about what he sees as the company’s changing purpose. The Microsoft-backed company said in a blog post that it wanted to defend itself against all of Musk’s lawsuits against the start-up and announced that it would provide clarification on its part.

“We are sad that things have come to this with someone we deeply admired,” writes OpenAI. “Someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we would fail, founded a competitor, and then sued us when we began making significant progress toward OpenAI’s mission without him.”

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