Two tech giants, Tesla’s Elon Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, are at loggerheads. What started as a lawsuit by Musk against OpenAI in 2024, where he alleged that he was “assiduously manipulated” and “deceived” after the AI company explored converting to a for-profit entity, has rekindled a public spat on X (formerly Twitter). 

What is the 2024 lawsuit against OpenAI about?

Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in 2024, alleging that the company abandoned its original nonprofit mission and violated commitments made at the time of its founding. 

Musk claims that Altman, his other co-founder, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI violated what he refers to as the "founding agreement" to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. This is the core of his latest complaint, which is similar to the one he filed in February. The company breached that agreement as it pivoted towards a partnership with Microsoft and became largely for-profit, as Musk alleged that this threatens humanity with reckless advancement of AI.

OpenAI was founded in 2015, with Musk contributing approximately $38 million, which, according to media reports, accounted for around 60% of OpenAI's early seed funding. This investment also helped recruit staff, connect the founders with contacts, and lend credibility to the project when it was created. Musk left the company in 2018, after facing internal power struggles with Altman. 

How did Sam Altman react?

The OpenAI CEO took to X, stating that Musk is “cherry-picking things” to make Brockman “look bad.” 

“Elon is cherry-picking things to make greg look bad, but the full story is that elon was pushing for a new structure, and greg and ilya spent a lot of time trying to figure out if they could meet his demands,” the post read. 

Altman further continued, while linking to a blog on OpenAI, saying, “I remembered a lot of this, but here is a part I had forgotten:

"Elon said he wanted to accumulate $80B for a self-sustaining city on Mars, and that he needed and deserved majority equity. He said that he needed full control since he’d been burned by not having it in the past, and when we discussed succession, he surprised us by talking about his children controlling AGI."

I appreciate people saying what they want and think it enables people to resolve things (or not). But Elon saying he wants the above is important context for Greg trying to figure out what he wants.”

Both OpenAI and Microsoft challenged Musk's damages claims in a separate filing on Friday, which were turned down.

What happens next?

In the meantime, Musk also filed a court filing on January 16 to seek up to $134 billion from OpenAI and Microsoft, opening a new tab and claiming he is entitled to the "wrongful gains" that they obtained from his early backing.

According to Musk's federal court filing, which opens a new tab before his trial against the two companies, Microsoft gained between $13.3 billion and $25.1 billion. In comparison, OpenAI gained between $65.5 billion and $109.4 billion from the billionaire entrepreneur's contributions when he co-founded what was then a startup in 2015.

"Without Elon Musk, there'd be no OpenAI. He provided the bulk of the seed funding, lent his reputation, and taught them all he knew about scaling a business. A pre-eminent expert quantified the value of that," Musk's lead trial lawyer Steven Molo said in a statement to Reuters.

OpenAI called it an "unserious demand" by Musk, and part of what it said was his "harassment campaign" against OpenAI in a statement. 

What was Musk’s latest reaction?

In a reaction to a post on X, which said that the Tesla boss had a 57% chance of winning the lawsuit, Musk said that he “can’t wait to start the trial.” 

“Can’t wait to start the trial. The discovery and testimony will blow your mind,” Musk wrote. This comes after a trial date was issued by the Federal Court. 

When is the trial?

The trial is set to start on April 27 and will run until May 22, 2026. The trial will be held before a jury presided over by US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California