Elon Musk drops lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman

Elon Musk has dropped a lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman over the company’s alleged departure from its founding mission to advance artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity and focus on corporate profits.

The owner of X. Corp moved on Tuesday to dismiss the lawsuit “without prejudice,” pointing out that no settlement had been reached to resolve the case. You can submit a complaint again.

In 2015, Musk helped found OpenAI, agreeing with co-founders Altman and Greg Brockman, the company’s CEO, to focus on nonprofit work. He left the startup’s board in 2017, before the company launched a for-profit division, and filed the lawsuit in March. The lawsuit concerned OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft.

Under its founding agreement, OpenAI agreed to make its code available to the public rather than isolate it behind a wall for a private company’s profits, the lawsuit said. But by establishing a close relationship with Microsoft, OpenAI and its executives are “inflaming” that pact and “perverting” the company’s original mission, Musk said.

On Monday, Musk, who is working on a ChatGPT competitor, said he would ban the sale of Apple devices at his companies if OpenAI’s AI software is integrated into the operating system.