Attorneys for tech billionaire Elon Musk have filed for a preliminary injunction against OpenAI, several of its co-founders, and its investor and close collaborator, Microsoft, to prevent OpenAI and other named defendants from engaging in what Musk’s counsel claims is anticompetitive behavior.
The motion for an injunction, which was filed late on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, Microsoft, LinkedIn co-founder and former OpenAI board member Reid Hoffman, and former OpenAI board member and Microsoft VP Dee Templeton of various illicit activities and seeks to halt them. The allegations include:
- Discouraging investors from backing OpenAI rivals like Musk’s own AI company, xAI.
- Benefitting from “wrongfully obtained competitively sensitive information” through OpenAI’s connections with Microsoft.
- Converting OpenAI’s governance structure to a for-profit and “transferring any material assets, including intellectual property owned, held, or controlled by OpenAI, Inc., its subsidiaries, or affiliates.”
- Causing OpenAI to do business with organizations in which any defendant has a “material financial interest.”
Attorneys for Musk assert that “irreparable harm” will ensue if the injunction isn’t granted.
“Plaintiffs and the public need a pause,” they wrote in the filing. “An injunction to preserve what is left of OpenAI’s nonprofit character, free from self-dealing, is the only appropriate remedy. If not, the OpenAI promised to Musk and the public will be long gone by the time the court reaches the merits.”
Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, which at its core accuses the company of abandoning its original nonprofit mission to make the fruits of its AI research available to all, was withdraw in July, only to be revived late this summer. In an amended complaint in November, the suit named new defendants including Microsoft, Hoffman, and Templeton, and two new plaintiffs: Shivon Zilis, a Neuralink exec and ex-OpenAI board member, and xAI.
Musk has argued in previous suits that he’s been defrauded out of more than $44 million he says he donated to OpenAI by preying on his “well-known concerns about the existential harms” of AI. Musk, one of OpenAI’s co-founders, left the company in 2018 over disagreements about its direction.
Musk formed xAI last year. Soon after, the company released Grok, a flagship generative AI model that now powers a number of features on Musk’s social network, X (formerly known as Twitter). xAI also offers an API that allows customers to build Grok into third-party apps, platforms, and services.
In the motion for an injunction, Musk’s attorneys allege OpenAI is depriving xAI of capital by extracting promises from investors not to fund it and the competition. In October, the Financial Times reported that OpenAI demanded investors in its latest funding round abstain from also funding any of OpenAI’s rivals, including xAI.
“Musk has verified that at least one major investor in OpenAI’s October funding round has subsequently declined to invest in xAI,” counsel for Musk wrote.
Of course, xAI has had no trouble raising money lately. Reportedly, the startup closed a $5 billion round this month with participation from prominent investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Fidelity. With around $11 billion in the bank, xAI is one of the best-funded AI ventures in the world.
Musk’s motion for an injunction also alleges that Microsoft and OpenAI continue to illegally share proprietary information and resources, and that several of the defendants, including Altman, are engaging in self-dealing that harms marketplace competition. For example, the filing notes, OpenAI selected Stripe, a payment platform in which Altman has “material financial interests,” as OpenAI’s payment processor. (Altman is said to have made billions from his Stripe holdings.)
Microsoft, which first backed OpenAI in early 2019, has ramped up the partnership over the last several years, investing a total of ~$13 billion in exchange for what’s effectively a 49% stake in the company’s earnings. Microsoft has also allowed OpenAI to make extensive use of its cloud hardware resources, enabling the startup to train, fine-tune, and run AI models like those that power ChatGPT.
Hoffman’s position on the boards of both Microsoft and OpenAI while also a partner at investment firm Greylock gave Hoffman a privileged view into the companies’ dealings, Musk’s attorneys argue. (Hoffman stepped down from OpenAI’s board in 2023.) As for Templeton, whom Microsoft briefly appointed as a nonvoting board observer at OpenAI, Musk’s counsel argues that she was in a position to facilitate agreements between Microsoft and OpenAI that would violate antitrust rules.
“Maintaining OpenAI’s charitable status pending final resolution and halting further self-dealing transactions by Altman protect both the organization’s founding mission and the public interest in proper administration of charities,” Musk’s attorneys wrote.
Counsel for Musk wrote that if an injunction isn’t granted, OpenAI might “lack sufficient funds” to pay damages were the court to eventually rule in Musk’s favor. (OpenAI is reportedly spending more than $5 billion and isn’t close to breaking even.) Moreover, they say, were a judge to disallow OpenAI’s nonprofit transition, it’d be “virtually impossible” to “unwind” the company’s transactions without “widespread investor loss” should OpenAI continue to accept new investments.
“No objective observer can look at OpenAI today and say it bears any resemblance whatsoever to what it promised to be,” attorneys for Musk wrote. “Plaintiffs respectfully request that the court maintain the status quo and pause defendants’ worsening behavior until final disposition.”
OpenAI did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. The company has previously sought to dismiss Musk’s suit, calling it “blusterous” and baseless.
