Elon Musk has unexpectedly requested a California court to withdraw his legal case against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. The lawsuit accused them of straying from the organization’s founding mission to develop artificial intelligence (AI) for the benefit of humanity.
The filing, submitted by Musk’s legal team, requested the months-old case be dropped without providing any reason for the decision. This move came just a day before the court was set to hear OpenAI’s request to have the case dismissed. Musk’s lawyer and OpenAI were contacted for comments but have yet to respond.
The latest filing asked for the case’s dismissal “without prejudice,” which means Musk retains the option to reactivate it in the future. The Tesla CEO initially filed the lawsuit against OpenAI in late February, alleging the company, which he co-founded in 2015, had shifted its focus from altruistic goals to profit-making.
In response, OpenAI argued that Musk had previously supported the idea of a for-profit structure and even suggested a merger with his electric car company, Tesla. The dispute escalated earlier this week following Apple’s announcement of a partnership with OpenAI to enhance its Siri voice assistant and operating systems using OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology.
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Following the announcement, Musk posted several critical messages on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. In one of the posts, he stated, “Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river.”
Despite Musk’s criticism, investors appeared to welcome the news, with Apple’s stock market value reaching a record high above $3 trillion.
In July 2023, Musk launched his own AI company, xAI, which aims to “understand reality.” In November, xAI introduced Grok, a chatbot designed with “a little humour,” to compete with ChatGPT and other similar technologies.
