Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Tuesday filed a motion in a California court to dismiss his lawsuit against ChatGPT developer OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that the startup has abandoned its original mission of developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, rather than for profit.
According to documents filed in San Francisco Superior Court, Musk’s lawyers asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, which was originally filed in February, without giving reasons.
A superior court judge there was prepared to hear OpenAI’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
Lawyers for OpenAI and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the dismissal of the lawsuit.
Musk had the lawsuit dismissed without prejudice, which means he can refile it another time.
The lawsuit marked the culmination of Musk’s long-standing opposition to OpenAI, a startup he co-founded and went on to receive billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft and become a poster child for generative AI.
Musk founded his own artificial intelligence startup, xAI, in July last year and raised $6 billion in Series B funding in May, giving the company a post-money valuation of $24 billion.
The lawsuit says Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman approached Musk about starting an open-source non-profit company, but the startup, founded in 2015, is now focused on making money.
OpenAI released its most powerful language model, GPT-4, last year, “igniting the founding agreement,” according to the lawsuit.
In his lawsuit, Musk asked a judge to force OpenAI to release its research and technology to the public and to block the company’s assets, including GPT-4, from being used for financial gain by Microsoft and others.
In court filings, OpenAI argued that the lawsuit is based on contradictory claims and is a contrived attempt by Musk to advance his own AI interests.
“Having seen the incredible technological advances OpenAI has made, Mr. Musk now wants to see it succeed himself,” OpenAI’s lawyers said.
In an April filing, Musk said OpenAI was “seeks to advance disputed factual claims” that go beyond the scope of the lawsuit.
