Elon Musk has made a surprising request to a California court, asking to withdraw a legal case against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman.
The lawsuit accused them of straying from the original mission of developing AI for the betterment of humanity.
In the filing submitted by Musk’s legal team, there was no explanation provided for the sudden decision to drop the months-old case.
This request came just a day before the court was scheduled to address OpenAI’s motion to dismiss the case.
BBC News reached out to Musk’s lawyer and OpenAI for comment regarding the withdrawal of the case.
The latest filing asked for the dismissal “without prejudice,” leaving open the possibility for Musk to revive the case in the future.
The lawsuit, filed by Musk at the end of February, alleged that OpenAI had shifted its focus from altruistic goals to profit-making ventures.
OpenAI countered Musk’s claims, pointing out that he had previously supported the idea of a for-profit structure and had even proposed a merger with his company, Tesla.
Tensions escalated further after Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI to enhance its Siri voice assistant and operating systems with OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.
Musk expressed his disapproval of the collaboration through several posts on his social media platform, X (formerly known as Twitter).
One of the posts ended with the words: “Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river.”
Despite the controversy surrounding the partnership, investors appeared to react positively to the news, leading to Apple’s stock market value reaching a record high of over $3 trillion.
Elon Musk ventured into the AI domain by founding his own company, xAI, in July 2023, with the stated goal of “understanding reality.”
In November of the same year, xAI introduced Grok, a chatbot infused with “a touch of humor,” aiming to compete with established platforms like ChatGPT.