OpenAI urges California, Delaware to investigate Elon Musk’s ‘anti-competitive behaviour’

OpenAI urged the California and Delaware attorneys general to consider investigating ​Elon Musk and his associates’ “improper and anti-competitive behavior”, ahead ‌of a trial between the two ​sides set to begin this ⁠month. Musk sued OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman and others in 2024, accusing them of violating OpenAI’s ‌founding mission as it restructures to a for-profit entity.

Musk was a ‌cofounder of OpenAI in 2015 but left ‌in ⁠2018 and launched rival xAI ⁠with its competitor chatbot Grok.

In a court filing in August, OpenAI had said Musk tried to enlist rival ​Mark Zuckerberg for ‌the bid that his consortium made for OpenAI early last year, but the CEO of Meta Platforms did not come on ‌board.

On Monday, the ChatGPT maker sent ​a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Delaware Attorney ⁠General Kathy Jennings, saying the lawsuit sought damages of more than $100 billion from its nonprofit foundation, ‌which it said would effectively cripple the organisation.

A judge in Oakland, California, ruled in January that a jury will hear the trial, expected to start in April.

OpenAI’s chief strategy officer Jason Kwon said ‌in the letter sent on Monday that the ​lawsuit could undermine the company’s efforts to ensure that artificial general intelligence, or AGI, ⁠benefits all of humanity.

Musk’s filings in the ⁠litigation “suggest that your offices did not thoroughly investigate OpenAI’s plan to recapitalize ‌and merely relied on promises about what OpenAI will do in the future,” Kwon ​said.