Elon Musk re-files lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

Elon Musk filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that he was deceived by Sam Altman into co-founding OpenAI.

The lawsuit is Musk's latest effort against the company he co-founded in 2015. The American billionaire believes that OpenAI and CEO Altman put commercial interests above the public interest.

According to Musk, he was lured and deceived by Altman and current OpenAI President Greg Brockman into co-creating the company with the promise that "it would go in a safer and more open direction than the profit-driven tech giants."

After joining and investing millions of dollars, Musk felt betrayed because Altman and the other co-founders joined Microsoft to form a network of OpenAI subsidiaries and operate for profit.

American billionaire Elon Musk in Krakow, Poland, January 22. Photo: AP

The lawsuit asks a federal court in California to rule that OpenAI's license to Microsoft to use its AI models is invalid. Musk argues that OpenAI's large language models should be outside the scope of the partnership with Microsoft.

The allegations are similar to a lawsuit Musk filed in late February, which the Tesla and SpaceX boss later withdrew .

Elon Musk has repeatedly expressed his deep concerns about artificial intelligence and the risks it poses to humanity. In his latest lawsuit, he said, " Altman told me he would ensure that the nonprofit structure would be neutral, focused on safety and openness for the benefit of humanity, not shareholder value. But it turns out that this was just charity."

The lawsuit also accuses Microsoft of participating in this by seeking to profit, enticing OpenAI to use and then becoming inseparably dependent on its cloud computing system.

Microsoft is OpenAI’s largest investor, reportedly investing $13 billion, and has steadily built up its position in the company behind ChatGPT over the years.

OpenAI, Microsoft and Sam Altman have not commented on the lawsuit.