Elon Musk has filed for an injunction against OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, broadly designed to prevent the GenAI poster child from shifting towards an entirely for-profit business.

The businessman and political advisor has been pursuing a legal battle against the ChatGPT maker, linked to Microsoft by a $13 billion investment pipeline.

Last month, Musk [1]added Microsoft to the list of defendants in his long-running legal dispute with OpenAI, claiming among other things that it had moved away from its original non-profit and open technology mission.

[2]

OpenAI told us at the time: "Elon's third attempt in less than a year to reframe his claims is even more baseless and overreaching than the previous ones. His prior emails continue to speak for themselves."

[3]

[4]

The new legal [5]filing [PDF] asks for an injunction to prevent OpenAI and a number of other linked parties from activities such as investing in OpenAI's competitors, obtaining sensitive information about the relationship between the Microsoft and OpenAI board, "furthering the conversion of OpenAI to a for-profit enterprise," and allowing OpenAI to do business with entities in which any of the defendants have a financial interest.

[6]Musk also wants to fight Microsoft in legal grudge match with OpenAI

[7]X to allow third parties to train their AI models with social media users' data

[8]OpenAI reportedly considering for-profit plans, but what would that be good for?

[9]Elon Musk reins in Grok AI bot to stop election misinformation

Those targeted in the injunction include Musk, Shivon Zilis – a former OpenAI board member and close Musk associate – and Musk's AI startup, xAI. The action targets OpenAI as well as co-founders Altman and Gregory Brockman, the company's president. Microsoft is also named among the long list of associated targets.

Before bringing LLMs to the mainstream, OpenAI was founded as a non-profit organization in 2015. The company later moved to become what it describes as a "partnership" between its original non-profit and a "capped profit arm."

In September, a company [10]spokesperson told The Register : "The non-profit is core to our mission and will continue to exist."

[11]

Musk's latest injunction claim is set to be heard in early January next year at the United States District Court, Northern District of California. ®

Get our [12]Tech Resources



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/15/musk_openai_amended_complaint/

[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z03nroV9VxBt4bCF0GqedgAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z03nroV9VxBt4bCF0GqedgAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z03nroV9VxBt4bCF0GqedgAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[5] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.433688/gov.uscourts.cand.433688.46.0.pdf

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/15/musk_openai_amended_complaint/

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/18/x_train_data/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/27/opinion_openai/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/28/grok_election_misinformation/

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/27/opinion_openai/

[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z03nroV9VxBt4bCF0GqedgAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/