Musk asks federal court to block OpenAI from becoming fully for-profit

It looks like Sam Altman is very high on Elon Musk’s list of enemies. The billionaire is asking a federal court to stop OpenAI from becoming a fully for-profit company.

Attorneys representing Musk, his AI startup xAI, and former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis filed for a preliminary injunction against OpenAI late last week.

The injunction, accusing Altman, OpenAI’s president Greg Brockman, and others of various illicit activities, would also stop OpenAI from allegedly requiring its investors to refrain from funding competitors, including xAI and others.

The latest filings (PDF) are an escalation in the ongoing legal feud between Musk – now very close to President-elect Donald Trump – and OpenAI. The billionaire originally sued the AI startup earlier in 2024.

Now, Musk’s camp again claims that OpenAI benefited from “wrongfully obtained competitively sensitive information” through connections with Microsoft and is wrong in pushing to convert its structure to a for-profit.

“Plaintiffs and the public need a pause. OpenAI’s path from a non-profit to for-profit behemoth is replete with per se anticompetitive practices, flagrant breaches of its charitable mission, and rampant self-dealing,” Musk’s attorneys write.

“Allowing this course of conduct to continue until final disposition will seriously harm Plaintiffs and the public at large.”

An OpenAI spokesperson told CNBC in reply: “Elon’s fourth attempt, which again recycles the same baseless complaints, continues to be utterly without merit.”

Musk, one of OpenAI’s co-founders, left the company in 2018 over disagreements about its direction. He’s criticized Altman ever since and, soon after ChatGPT went viral in late 2022, signed an open letter signaling concern over the rise of generative AI.

Previously, while still dealing with Altman at OpenAI’s non-profit board, Musk said he didn’t want the company to seem like “Microsoft’s marketing bitch.” He calls OpenAI a “market-paralyzing gorgon” in the lawsuit and has given Altman a Trump-style nickname, “Swindly Sam.”

The structure and mission of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, were among the main sources of discontent last year when Altman was temporarily removed as CEO. The comeback kid then began preparing changes in the firm’s complex non-profit corporate structure.

Soon, OpenAI’s plans to become a for-profit company have made a whistleblower go public with her worries that the firm, founded with a commitment to benefitting “all of humanity,” could begin cutting corners on safety.