Court Rejects OpenAI's Efforts to Cancel Elon Musk's Lawsuit
"This case is going to trial."
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If you're not familiar with the life of the rich and powerful, here is a quick recap of the conflict between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.
Musk was one of the co-founders of OpenAI but left before its rise to the fame it has now. For a while, Altman and Musk lived their own lives, although the Tesla CEO sometimes had something to say about how OpenAI deals with its business.
In 2024, the criticism turned into a whole lawsuit that Musk filed against OpenAI, accusing it of violating their founding agreement to develop AI for the benefit of humanity and not for profit by collaborating with Microsoft. He said he'd donated millions of dollars to the company, so his expectations for it to stay a non-profit organization are understandable.
OpenAI denied the allegations, saying that Musk knew of the company's for-profit plans back in 2018 and noting that it is still controlled by its non-profit arm. It tried to close the case, but no such luck: this Wednesday, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected the move.
"This case is going to trial," the judge said (via Business Insider). "I think there's plenty of evidence. It's circumstantial, but that's how these things work."
"There were assurances made, and promises made, that the structure would be maintained," she continued. "There was lots of information that was not shared." She concluded that now, the jury is going to get to decide who's right and who's wrong, but she feels "there are strong arguments by the defense."
OpenAI disagrees:
"Mr Musk's lawsuit continues to be baseless and a part of his ongoing pattern of harassment, and we look forward to demonstrating this at trial," a spokesperson for OpenAI told Business Insider. "We remain focused on empowering the OpenAI Foundation, which is already one of the best resourced nonprofits ever."
Musk's trial attorney is grateful for the court's decision and promises to present "all the evidence of the defendants' wrongdoing to the jury."
All we can do now is wait for a trial that will take place in March.
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