Elon Musk seeks injunction to stop OpenAI from becoming a for-profit company

Elon Musk’s lawyers have filed for a preliminary injunction against OpenAI, several of its co-founders, and its investor and close partner Microsoft to prevent OpenAI and other named defendants from engaging in anti-competitive behavior. The motion for an injunction, filed late Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman, its president Greg Brockman, Microsoft, LinkedIn co-founder and former OpenAI board member Reid Hoffman, and former OpenAI board member and Microsoft vice president Dee Templeton of engaging in a variety of illegal activities and seeks to stop them. The allegations include: Preventing investors from supporting OpenAI’s competitors, such as Musk’s AI company xAI; Benefiting from “unlawfully obtained competitively sensitive information” through OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft; Transforming OpenAI’s governance structure to a for-profit structure and “transferring any material assets, including intellectual property owned, held, or controlled by OpenAI, Inc., its subsidiaries, or affiliates”; Forcing OpenAI to do business with any organization in which the defendant has a “significant economic interest”; Musk’s lawyers claim that “irreparable harm” will be caused if the injunction is not granted. Musk, who argued in previous lawsuits that he was defrauded of more than $44 million, said his donations to OpenAI took advantage of his "well-known concerns about the harms of artificial intelligence." Musk was one of the co-founders of OpenAI, who left the company in 2018 over disagreements over the company's direction. (TechCrunch)