Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has expanded his lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI, adding federal antitrust and other claims and adding Microsoft, OpenAI's biggest financial backer, as a defendant.
Musk's amended lawsuitfiled Thursday night in federal court in Oakland, California, said Microsoft and OpenAI were illegally trying to monopolize competitors' markets in generative artificial intelligence and side jobs.
Similar to Musk's original August complaint, the group accused OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman of putting profit over the public interest in promoting AI advancements and violating the terms of their contracts.
“Never before in just eight years has a company gone from a tax-exempt charity to a $157 billion for-profit, market-paralyzing gorgon,” the complaint says. It seeks to revoke OpenAI's license with Microsoft and force it to sell its “ill-gotten” profits.
OpenAI said in a statement that the lawsuit is “even more baseless and overreach than previous lawsuits.”
Microsoft and Musk's lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
Musk has long-simmering objections to OpenAI, the startup he co-founded and later became the face of generative AI with billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft.
Musk is receiving new attention as a central figure for President-elect Donald Trump. Trump nominated Musk to a new role aimed at cutting government waste after he donated millions of dollars to Trump's Republican campaign.
The expanded lawsuit alleges that OpenAI and Microsoft violated antitrust laws by making investment opportunities conditional on agreements not to do business with rival companies. The company said the exclusive licensing agreement between the two companies amounted to a merger without regulatory approval.
in Submission to court OpenAI last month accused Musk of pursuing the lawsuit as part of an “increasingly blatant campaign to harass OpenAI for his own competitive advantage.”
