Washington Washington. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk expanded his lawsuit against ChatGate creator OpenAI, adding federal antitrust and other claims and adding Microsoft, OpenAI's biggest financial backer, as a defendant. Musk's amended lawsuit, filed Thursday night in federal court in Oakland, California, says Microsoft and OpenAI illegally tried to monopolize the market for generative artificial intelligence and sideline competitors.
Like Musk's original August complaint, it accused OpenAI and its chief executive Samuel Altman of violating contract provisions by putting profit ahead of the public good in an effort to advance AI. The complaint states, “Before Never has a corporation transformed from a tax-exempt charity to a $157 billion profit-making, market-crippling gorgon – and that's in just eight years.” It seeks to revoke OpenAI's license with Microsoft and force them to sell “ill-gotten” profits.
OpenAI said in a statement that the latest lawsuit “is even more baseless and hyperbolic than previous lawsuits.” Lawyers for Microsoft and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Musk has a long-standing antipathy toward OpenAI , a startup he co-founded and which has since become the face of generative AI through billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft.
Musk has gained new prominence as a major force in the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump. Trump appointed Musk to a new role designed to reduce government waste, after he donated millions of dollars to Trump's Republican campaign. The expanded lawsuit said OpenAI and Microsoft dealt with the companies' rivals. Violated antitrust laws by conditioning investment opportunities on agreements not to do so. It said the companies' exclusive licensing agreement amounts to a merger lacking regulatory approval. In a court filing last month, OpenAI accused Musk of pursuing the lawsuit as part of “a rapidly escalating campaign to harass OpenAI for his own competitive advantage.”
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