Musk withdraws his breach of contract lawsuit against OpenAI

Elon Musk dropped a lawsuit against OpenAI one day before a judge in California state court was set to hear OpenAI’s request for dismissal. Musk’s suit, which was filed in February, had accused OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman of violating the company’s non-profit status and instead prioritizing profits over using AI to help humanity.

In the 35-page suit, Musk had alleged that OpenAI had become a “closed-source de facto subsidiary” of Microsoft, which invested $13 billion in the company and owns a 49 percent stake. Microsoft uses OpenAI’s technology to power Copilot, the company’s generative AI tools that are deeply integrated in products like Windows and Office.

OpenAI had reportedly requested for the lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing that Musk would use any information that emerged as a result to get access to the company’s “proprietary records and technology.” The company had also said that there was no founding agreement for it to breach.

OpenAI and Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, did not respond to a request for comment from Engadget.

Musk, who was one of the founders of OpenAI in 2015, left the company three years later after disagreements over the direction of the organization. He runs xAI an AI startup that makes Grok, a ChatGPT rival that is built into X and is available for paid users. xAI recently raised a $6 billion funding round from top investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital.

On Monday, Musk said that he would ban Apple devices from his company’s after Apple integrated ChatGPT in its operating systems through a partnership with OpenAI.