OpenAI takes a swipe at Musk for his 'relentless' campaign against them

The owner of OpenAI has taken aim at Elon Musk over what they describe as a “relentless” campaign against the company.

Musk and Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and the company that created ChatGPT, previously worked together to launch the startup company back in 2015.

However, the relationship between the two tech businessmen has soured in recent years and now OpenAI has issued a court filing in which Musk is accused of sabotage.

On Wednesday (9 April), a court filing claimed that Musk had engaged in a “relentless” campaign against the company in a deliberate effort to hamper its growth.

“Musk has engaged in these efforts to slow OpenAI’s progress and impair its ability to compete effectively in an increasingly crowded field, but also to seize and maintain for xAI an unearned edge designed to impair competition more broadly for the sole benefit of Musk’s xAI, at the expense of the public interest,” OpenAI’s lawyers said in a 100-page filing.

Musk, who owns competing artificial intelligence xAI, launched his own court fight claiming that the company has abandoned its original mission of being a non-profit.

In 2018, Musk left OpenAI’s board, but he appears to disagree with Altman’s plan to change OpenAI from a nonprofit into a for-profit business.

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It comes as Musk launched a $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI in February, sparking a sarcastic comeback from Altman on X/Twitter.

Musk’s unsolicited offer was referenced in the court filing, accusing Musk of a “sham bid” to intentionally harm OpenAI’s ability to raise funds and to harm its relationship with existing investors.

According to the filing from OpenAI, the bid was a “very public effort” to artificially inflate the business' valuation and “has already caused confusion”.

It also alleges: “The purchase price noted in the Letter of Intent was a joking reference to 974 Praf, a character in Iain Banks’ science fiction series, Look to Windward, from which Musk has also drawn names for multiple SpaceX rockets.”

indy100 has contacted Elon Musk for comment.

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