Elon Musk at a conference at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 16, 2023. Credit line: Jameis Delaynee / Alamy / Profimedia
Elon Musk is seeking up to $134 billion from OpenAI and Microsoft, arguing that he deserves to receive the “ill-gotten gains” they made from their early support of the artificial intelligence startup, according to a court filing on Friday cited by Reuters.
OpenAI earned between $65.5 billion and $109.4 billion in contributions due to him when he co-founded OpenAI in 2015, and Microsoft earned between $13.3 billion and $25.1 billion, Musk claims in federal court filings ahead of his lawsuit against the two companies.
OpenAI called the lawsuit “baseless” and part of a “harassment” campaign by Musk. A lawyer for Microsoft said there was no evidence the company “aided and abetted” OpenAI.
Musk, who left OpenAI in 2018 and now runs xAI, which has the Grok chatbot, claims that ChatGPT operator OpenAI violated its founding mission in a sweeping restructuring to become a for-profit entity.
A judge in Oakland, Calif., ruled this month that the trial will go to a jury. The trial is expected to begin in April.
In the filing, Musk says he contributed about $38 million, 60 percent of OpenAI's initial funding, helped recruit employees, connected the founders with key people, and gave the project credibility at the time of its creation.
“Just as an early investor in a start-up company can make gains far greater than the investor's initial investment, the ill-gotten gains made by OpenAI and Microsoft — and which Mr. Musk is now entitled to recover — are far greater than Mr. Musk's initial contributions,” Musk claims.
The filing states that Musk's contributions to OpenAI and Microsoft were calculated by his expert witness, financial economist C. Paul Wazzan.
Musk could seek punitive damages and other sanctions, including a possible injunction, if a jury finds one of the companies liable, the filing said, without specifying what form a possible injunction might take.
