Is Elon Musk being petty by suing OpenAI?

A lot is going on over at OpenAI HQ. The company is the subject of a federal investigation, and now they just got slapped with a lawsuit.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI alleging that the company has abandoned its original mission. 

According to Musk, Open AI’s original purpose was to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity and not for profit. 

Essentially, he’s saying they’ve abandoned their morals and become slaves to the dollar.

Some backstory here, Musk is actually one of the co-founders of OpenAI. He provided some of the startup funds to get the company going and pledged to give more money throughout the years. 

But then in 2017, he tried to seize control of the company from co-founder and current CEO Sam Altman and the other co-founders. 

Musk reportedly wanted to fold OpenAI into Tesla, which would end up giving him ultimate control.

But Altman and other founders fought back, and Musk eventually resigned.  Ever since then, he’s had beef with the company. He even started his own AI company, called xAI.

OpenAI eventually got funding from Microsoft, in exchange for a 49% stake in the company.

Since 2018, OpenAI has become the face of the AI revolution, thanks to ChatGPT and now Sora, their new text to video AI.

Now according to the lawsuit, Musk says that OpenAI was supposed to be an open-source, non-profit company.  But now all they think about is turning a profit.

I think they kinda have to because Microsoft invested billions in the startup firm, so I’m sure they’re looking for a great return. 

Musk is asking the court to issue a ruling that would force OpenAI to make its research and technology available to the public. 

That would be a HUGE deal because it would completely blow the company’s competitive edge out of the water. If everyone knows how the sausage is made plus you give them the tools to make it, they don’t need to buy it from you. 

Additionally, Musk wants OpenAI to stop using its assets, including GPT 4, which is the newest version of ChatGPT, for the financial gain of Microsoft or any individual.

So this could be a really big case. However, some analysts are saying this suit has no teeth.

And one market researcher said “chalk this up to Musk seeking to get a slice of equity in a company he effectively founded but in which he holds no stake”. 

Because Musk left before ChatGPT exploded so he didn’t get any of that success. 

Now OpenAI just launched Sora, a text-to-video AI bot that’s got some scary good results and is shaping up to be another win.

I’m sure he’s feeling a massive case of MOFO….I mean FOMO!

But if that’s not enough, the US Securities and Exchange Commission also launched an investigation into OpenAI over concerns it ‘misled investors’.

The logical next question is, ‘misled investors about what?’ 

Well, the SEC is being very tightlipped over what they’re actually investigating. 

Normally, that wouldn’t be too suspicious.  After all, it is a federal investigation. But the investigation was reportedly launched back in November when OpenAI’s board very dramatically fired CEO Sam Altman and then reinstated him days later after most of the staff threatened to resign.

The SEC has apparently sent official requests to OpenAI, seeking clarification on the whole situation. It is not 100% clear whether they’re investigating Altman, the board or both.

But, according to the New York Times, sources close to the investigation said the board was worried that Altman wasn’t sharing all of his plans to raise money from investors in the Middle East for an AI chip project. 

So that could be what this is all about. 

BUT WAIT, there’s more! OpenAI themselves have reportedly hired a law firm to conduct a separate investigation into Altman and the board’s decision to remove him.

Talk about a plot twist…. And that’s the bottom line.