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Elon Musk has filed a new lawsuit against OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman, accusing the artificial intelligence company that he helped co-found of compromising its mission to benefit humanity.
The tech billionaire’s lawsuit filed in a California federal court comes two months after he abruptly withdrew a similar case in state court. The filing on Monday includes new allegations that Altman and his co-founder Greg Brockman broke federal racketeering laws.
“Altman and his longtime associate Brockman assiduously manipulated Musk into co-founding their spurious non-profit venture,” only for them to switch to a for-profit mission as they deepened OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft, the lawsuit alleged.
Musk’s long-running dispute with Altman started in 2018 when he left OpenAI’s board, following a disagreement with Altman over the direction of its research.
OpenAI’s for-profit division was established a year later. Microsoft has invested $13bn in the company through a complex ownership structure now under investigation by US and EU regulators.
Musk launched his own for-profit AI start-up, xAI, last year. Last month, he said he would seek approval from Tesla’s board to invest $5bn in the company, as he sought to catch up with rivals such as OpenAI, the maker of chatbot ChatGPT, in offering larger and more AI models.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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