Elon Musk Maybe Not So Mad At OpenAI After All, Drops “Benefit Of Humanity” Suit One Day After Trashing Company & Apple
Elon Musk can huff, post and puff, but looks like he won’t be blowing the OpenAI house down.
Three and a half months after declaring that he was sueing to compel the Sam Altman-led firm he co-founded to stop chasing profits and “return to its mission to develop AGI for the benefit of humanity,” the X owner today withdrew the lawsuit.
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No reason was given for dropping the action. However, being that Musk dismissed his own suit without prejudice, the tempestuous billionaire is free to file again if he chooses.
Noticeably, the dismissal comes about 24 hours before a Bay Area judge had set a hearing on OpenAI and Altman’s motion to toss the case out. Musk’s self-dismissal also comes just over 24 hours after the Tesla boss went on a social media rant about Apple bringing OpenAI’s ChatGPT on board as a backup of sorts for its new AI program Apple Intelligence.
At one point getting into Scarlett Johansson’s squabble with OpenAI, Musk declared that all Apple products will be “banned” from X, Tesla, SpaceX, the Boring Company and any other company he owns. Musk called it “an unacceptable security violation” if “Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level.”
Musk initially sued OpenAI and its top executives in March for breach of contract.
“This case is filed to compel OpenAI to adhere to the Founding Agreement and return to its mission to develop AGI for the benefit of humanity, not to personally benefit the individual Defendants and the largest technology company in the world,” the filing stated.
With Musk raising billions in funding for his own xAI, OpenAI slapped aside the South African’s lawsuit as “incoherent.”
They further exclaimed: “Were this case to proceed to discovery, the evidence would show that Musk supported a for-profit structure for OpenAI, to be controlled by Musk himself, and dropped the project when his wishes were not followed. Seeing the remarkable technological advances OpenAI has achieved, Musk now wants that success for himself.”
In this busy week for one of the world’s richest men, Musk faces a defining moment at a June 13 Tesla shareholder meeting.
Whether or not, the shareholders will vote to reinstate $56 billion payout Musk was to receive from the company before a judge crushed the “absurdly outsized” board package. Like the payout, an official move of Tesla from the regulations of Delaware to Texas, where its HQ is now, is also expected to pass.
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