Elon Musk Turns The Heat Up On Sam Altman, Accusing Him of Pulling A SBF-Like Con With OpenAI

If Elon Musk had a reality TV show this summer, it would be called "Keeping Up with the Lawsuits." 

Between his legal battle with the mother of his child, hopping on a plane to Delaware to save his $56 billion pay package, and juggling dozens of other lawsuits against his companies all at once, you'd think he'd be sick of courtrooms. But no, this time, Elon is flipping the script and taking the role of the plaintiff in his latest fight with Sam Altman.

That’s right. Elon Musk has revived his lawsuit against OpenAI, dragging Sam Altman back to court, claiming he was duped into thinking the AI company he was helping to launch would be a nonprofit. According to the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Northern California, Altman convinced Musk that OpenAI would take the altruistic approach and prioritize humanity's benefit over making money.

Instead, Musk found himself in a situation where profit seemed to be the main goal, leading to a dramatic clash over the true intentions behind OpenAI. Remember the last controversial altruistic figure and all the headlines claiming SBF was a humble billionaire who drives a Toyota Corolla ? Yeah, let's hope OpenAI turns out better than FTX.

Musk claims that Altman convinced him to join OpenAI by promising it would be a nonprofit focused on safety and benefiting humanity. Musk, excited about the future, invested millions of dollars and brought in top AI experts. However, according to the lawsuit, Musk says he was tricked. Instead of a nonprofit, he found a profit-driven company. The lawsuit describes Altman's promises as empty words, used to deceive Musk. The kicker? Even Elon, a billionaire, fell for the classic “we’re not in it for the money” line. Maybe that’s the big difference between Elon and Sam—one believed in the dream, the other cashed in on it.

OpenAI, it seems, didn’t get the memo to comment. But in case you’re wondering, they are governed by a nonprofit board that controls the for-profit entity, a setup that’s as clear as mud.

This isn’t Musk’s first rodeo with OpenAI in court. He filed a similar lawsuit back in March, only to withdraw it in June. Now, Musk is back with a vengeance, having launched his own AI startup, xAI, which, by the way, raked in a modest $6 billion in its latest fundraising round.

(Source: PYMNTS)

The new lawsuit repeats Musk’s earlier complaints, accusing Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and even tech giant Microsoft of creating a “web of for-profit OpenAI affiliates” and engaging in “rampant self-dealing.” Musk says he was “courted and deceived” into co-founding OpenAI under the illusion it was a nonprofit. But once Musk was involved, the nonprofit story quickly unraveled, revealing a tangled web of for-profit schemes.

And Microsoft, with its hefty $13 billion investment in OpenAI, isn’t off the hook. The lawsuit alleges that Microsoft tried to gain the upper hand by making OpenAI dependent on its cloud services. Despite Musk’s admiration for Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, the lawsuit hints that he’s not letting them off easy. Forget the fight with Zuckerberg, maybe Elon and Sam should just skip the courtroom and settle this in the ring—or better yet, each create their own AI robots and have them fight it out.

Stock.News has positions in Microsoft and Tesla.