Elon Musk Vs OpenAI: World's Richest Man Accuses ChatGPT Maker Of Abandoning Safety In AI Race In US Federal Lawsuit

Elon Musk has intensified his ongoing battle with Sam Altman, alleging in a court filing that OpenAI is attempting to monopolise the generative AI market while compromising safety standards to stay ahead in the competition.

In a revised version of a lawsuit he initially filed in August, Musk raised antitrust issues surrounding OpenAI's transformation from a nonprofit organisation, co-founded by him and Altman in 2015, to a for-profit entity backed by significant investments from Microsoft and others.

Musk, the founder of the xAI startup that was set up last year, claimed that OpenAI has now abandoned all pretense of proceeding as a charity to benefit humanity with a focus on openness and safety as it tries to complete its restructuring under a two-year deadline.

"Microsoft and OpenAI, apparently unsatisfied with their monopoly, or near so, in generative artificial intelligence ("AI") are now actively trying to eliminate competitors, such as xAI, by extracting promises from investors not to fund them," lawyers for the billionaire wrote in the amended complaint filed late Thursday in federal court in Oakland, California.

Earlier in October, OpenAI had called Musk's federal suit - which followed a state-court suit that Musk dropped - the latest bid in an "increasingly blusterous campaign to harass OpenAI for his own competitive advantage."

The updated legal filing spans 107 pages and includes 26 legal claims, a notable increase from the 15 claims across the original 83-page complaint.

Musk voiced alarm over OpenAI's recent agreements with the US Department of Defence and its decision to remove clauses from its policies that previously prohibited the use of its technology for activities that has a high risk of "physical harm" such as "weapons development" or "military and warfare".

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