Elon Musk withdraws lawsuit against OpenAI

Legal action on hold but Tesla boss may decide to refile in future

Life

Image: Bigstock via Dennis

Elon Musk is withdrawing his lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman for now. Musk, one of OpenAI’s early backers, felt the company was straying from its original mission to develop AI for the benefit of humanity and not for profit.

Musk sued OpenAI and Altman in February for breach of contract. His complaints related specifically to OpenAI’s collaboration with tech giant Microsoft and its choice to develop ChatGPT-4 as a closed (not open source) system.

At the time, Musk urged OpenAI to return to its open source principles and sought an injunction to prevent for-profit exploitation of AGI technology.

It also explains Musk’s exasperation with Apple’s collaboration, where ChatGPT will be integrated into iPhone, iPad and Mac operating systems as announced earlier this week.

Musk claims that Apple’s decision represents an “unacceptable security breach” by entrusting privacy and security to a third party like OpenAI.

Musk did not explain why he is withdrawing the lawsuit, but he may still file the lawsuit later.

In March 2023 Musk was one of 239 entrepreneurs, academics and experts who signed an open letter asking for research into artificial intelligence to be paused until appropriate systems were put in place to limit the dangers to society.

Read More: Artificial Intelligence ChatGPT Elon Musk OpenAI