OpenAI, the influential artificial intelligence company that ousted and then reinstated its high-profile CEO three months ago, faces a new drama: a lawsuit from Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world and a co-founder of the AI lab. Musk sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, accusing them of breaching a contract by putting profits and commercial interests in developing AI ahead of the public good. A multibillion-dollar partnership that OpenAI developed with Microsoft, Musk said, represented an abandonment of a founding pledge to carefully develop AI and make the technology publicly available. "OpenAI has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company, Microsoft," said the lawsuit filed Thursday in Superior Court in San Francisco.

OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk has sued the company, his fellow co-founders, associated businesses and unidentified others. He claims that, by chasing profits, they're violating OpenAI's status as a non-profit and its foundational contractual agreements to develop AI "for the benefit of humanity." The suit alleges that OpenAI has become a "closed-source de facto subsidiary" of Microsoft, which has invested 13 billion and holds a 49 percent stake. Microsoft uses OpenAI tech to power generative AI tools such as Copilot. According to the filing, under OpenAI's current board, it is allegedly developing and refining an artificial general intelligence (AGI) "to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity. This was a stark betrayal of the Founding Agreement."

"This case is filed to compel OpenAI to adhere to the Founding Agreement and return to its mission to develop AGI for the benefit of humanity, not to personally benefit the individual Defendants and the largest technology company in the world," the lawsuit says.

Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and Sam Altman for allegedly abandoning OpenAI's original mission to develop artificial intelligence to benefit humanity. "OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft," Musk's lawyers wrote in the lawsuit, which was filed late on Thursday in San Francisco. "Under its new board, it is not just developing but is refining an AGI [Artificial General Intelligence] to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity," claims the filing. "On information and belief, GPT-4 is an AGI algorithm." OpenAI, which counts Musk among its cofounders, has a unique corporate structure.

Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman, alleging the start-up betrayed its original promise of working to benefit humanity when it forged a multibillion-dollar alliance with Microsoft. The lawsuit filed in San Francisco on Thursday said Altman and OpenAI's co-founder Greg Brockman had initially pledged to make an open-source, non-profit company, and that its pursuit of profit constituted a breach of contract. The company had kept the design of GPT-4, its most advanced AI model, "a complete secret", said Musk's lawyers. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but stepped down from its board in 2018. He also runs electric vehicle maker Tesla and rocket maker SpaceX, and bought Twitter for 44bn in October 2022.

Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, of breaching its foundational mission by putting the pursuit of profit ahead of the benefit of humanity. The world's richest man, a founding board member of the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, claimed that Altman had "set aflame" the OpenAI's founding agreement by signing an investment deal with Microsoft. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco on Thursday, claims that OpenAI is now developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) – a theoretical form of AI that can perform a range of tasks at or above a human level of intelligence – for profit rather than for the benefit of humankind. "OpenAI Inc has been transformed into a closed-source, de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft. Under its new board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximise profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity," the lawsuit alleges.

Elon Musk sued OpenAI and its Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman, alleging they violated the artificial intelligence startup's founding mission by putting profit ahead of benefiting humanity. The 52-year-old billionaire, who was a co-founder of OpenAI but no longer has a stake, said in a lawsuit filed late Thursday in San Francisco that the company's close relationship with Microsoft Corp. has undermined its original mission of creating open-source technology that wouldn't be subject to corporate priorities. Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla Inc., has been among the most outspoken about the dangers of AI and artificial general intelligence, or AGI. The release of OpenAI's ChatGPT more than a year ago popularized advances in AI technology and raised concerns about the risks surrounding the race to develop AGI, where computers are as smart as an average human. "To this day, OpenAI Inc.'s website continues to profess that its charter is to ensure that AGI'benefits all of humanity,'" the lawsuit said.