Elon Musk has dropped his lawsuit against OpenAI, the company he co-founded in 2015. Court filings from the Superior Court of California reveal that Musk called off the legal action on June 11th, just a day before an informal conference was scheduled to discuss the discovery process.
Musk had initially sued OpenAI in March 2024, alleging breach of contracts, unfair business practices, and failure in fiduciary duty. He claimed that his contributions to the company were made “in exchange for and in reliance on promises that those assets were irrevocably dedicated to building AI for public benefit, with only safety as a countervailing concern.”
The lawsuit sought remedies for “breach of contract, promissory estoppel, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair business practices, and accounting,” as well as specific performance, restitution, and damages.
However, Musk’s filings to withdraw the case provided no explanation for abandoning the lawsuit. OpenAI had previously called Musk’s claims “incoherent” and that his inability to produce a contract made his breach claims difficult to prove, stating that documents provided by Musk “contradict his allegations as to the alleged terms of the agreement.”
The withdrawal of the lawsuit comes at a time when Musk is strongly opposing Apple’s plans to integrate ChatGPT into its operating systems.
During Apple’s keynote event announcing Apple Intelligence for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, Musk threatened to ban Apple devices from his companies, calling the integration “an unacceptable security violation.”
Despite assurances from Apple and OpenAI that user data would only be shared with explicit consent and that interactions would be secure, Musk questioned Apple’s ability to ensure data security, stating, “Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river.”
Since bringing the lawsuit against OpenAI, Musk has also created his own AI company, xAI, and secured over $6 billion in funding for his plans to advance the Grok chatbot on his social network, X.
While Musk’s reasoning for dropping the OpenAI lawsuit remains unclear, his actions suggest a potential shift in focus towards advancing his own AI endeavours while continuing to vocalise his criticism of OpenAI through social media rather than the courts.
See also: DuckDuckGo releases portal giving private access to AI models
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