Elon Musk has dropped his lawsuit against OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence company that he helped found and is now a rival.
Musk’s lawyers filed the motion on his behalf on Tuesday. The motion does not give any reasons for dismissing the lawsuit, but OpenAI’s lawyers are expected to argue at a hearing on Wednesday that the suit should be dismissed.
Musk initially filed the lawsuit in early March, alleging that OpenAI violated promises to early investors and the public to develop AI for the benefit of humanity when it began to turn a profit. At the time, OpenAI executives charged that Musk’s lawsuit was filed because he wasn’t part of the company when it was experiencing wild success. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. An OpenAI spokesman declined to comment.
Musk was part of the original group that founded OpenAI to counter the power of big tech companies, including Google, which were investing billions of dollars in developing AI technology. He formally stepped down from his position at OpenAI in 2018. Since then, the company has attracted billions of dollars in outside investment from Microsoft and has been a central catalyst for the AI boom. On Monday, OpenAI announced a major deal to integrate its ChatGPT chatbot into Apple products.
Musk has openly criticized OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, for focusing on growing the company and making money rather than serving humanity. At the same time, Musk is starting his own AI company, called xAI, which he raised $6 billion for last month.
Aaron Shaffer contributed to this report.
