Elon Musk drops lawsuit against OpenAI

Elon Musk has withdrawn his lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman. Musk has not given a reason for this. Musk sued OpenAI earlier this year, alleging the company was in breach of contract by choosing profit over “its mission.”

Musk has asked the California court to drop the lawsuit, according to court documents. Reuters notes that Musk could legally resubmit the same suit at a later date. The judge would consider the case for the first time on Wednesday.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO co-founded OpenAI and stepped down from the board in 2018. At the end of February, he started the lawsuit against OpenAI, because this company allegedly broke an agreement with Elon Musk. Musk stated that OpenAI was an open source and non-profit company at its inception, with a mission to develop artificial intelligence for the good of humanity. The company is now said to be focused on profit and the language models are no longer open source. OpenAI would thus have broken the contract claimed by Elon Musk.

Shortly after the indictment was announced, OpenAI stated that there was no agreement between the company and Musk. The company also published emails in which Musk indicated he agreed to at least a partially closed-source policy. The emails also showed that Musk wanted to connect OpenAI to Tesla to improve the neural network of the EVs. This would allow the cars to drive themselves better, allowing the company to sell more cars. This money could then be invested in OpenAI. In these emails, OpenAI further stated that Musk wanted to take control of the company. When this failed, Musk left OpenAI. Musk says he wants to say 'more later' about dropping the charges.