Musk Says He Was “Tricked Into Investing” as OpenAI Calls Claims “Baseless” – Trial Set for April

According to Financial News, the main trial in the lawsuit filed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and others is set to begin on April 27 (local time).
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP) on the 13th, the key issue in the trial will be whether Altman broke his promise to run OpenAI as a nonprofit organization pursuing the public interest and thereby misled Musk.
Musk claims that “Altman deceived me by saying he would ‘develop open AI technology for the benefit of humanity to counter Google DeepMind.’” Relying on Altman’s statements, Musk says he invested tens of millions of dollars when OpenAI was founded in 2015, but that OpenAI later abandoned its original mission and began pursuing profit, including by taking investment from Microsoft (MS). In addition, Musk has taken issue with the fact that OpenAI is developing its AI models as closed-source rather than open-source.
OpenAI reorganized its corporate structure last October into a public benefit corporation (PBC) that pursues both profit and the public interest, while maintaining a structure in which it remains under the control of the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation. OpenAI has asked the court to dismiss Musk’s lawsuit, arguing that his claims lack merit, but Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over the case, declined to do so. The upcoming proceedings are expected to be held as a jury trial.
whywani@fnnews.com Chaewan Hong Reporter