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Elon Musk's attempt to strong arm OpenAI and its co-founder Sam Altman in court has proven unsuccessful, as a judge has dismissed the case, calling Musk's accusations a 'stretch' - especially following his recent bid.
A fiery feud stretching nearly a decade serves as the background for Elon Musk's latest court case, as he's continually expressed his opposition to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, despite co-founding the company together back in 2015.
This particular clash of personalities almost caused a rift between Musk and US President Donald Trump, as the latter awarded Altman a $500 million government AI contract that appeared to displease the richest man in the world.
Things became especially heated in recent weeks though after Musk submitted a $97,000,000,000 offer to buy OpenAI, which Altman swiftly dismissed, offering a tenth of the price for X (formerly Twitter) in return.
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Pair this with a lawsuit alleging that OpenAI, Altman, and Microsoft, among others, were not only violating antitrust laws but abandoning the original non-profit for-humanity goal of the company, and you can see why Musk and Altman aren't exactly seeing eye to eye.
As reported by the New York Post, Musk's lawsuit has now been dismissed by US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who asserted that the prosecution "failed to meet their burden of proof for the extraordinary relief requested."
However, she also added that "given the public interest at stake and potential for harm if a conversion contrary to law occurred, the Court is prepared to expedite trial to the fall of 2025."
This appeared to open up the option for the case to go to public trial, to which Musk's attorney Marc Toberoff has indicated: "We look forward to a jury confirming that Altman accepted Musk's charitable contributions knowing full well they had to be used for the public's benefit rather than his own enrichment."
This claim comes after Musk initially invested $45,000,000 into OpenAI as a co-founder, under the impression that it would be within the confines of a nonprofit. Altman, when proposing the idea of OpenAI to Musk, compared the company to a 'Manhattan Project for AI', where their goal would be to use artificial intelligence to benefit humanity.
Musk has now claimed that OpenAI's attempts to turn the company for-profit signal the transformation from a "tax-exempt charity to a $157 billion for-profit, market-paralyzing gorgon."
Altman has denied these claims, revealing emails from Musk that show his desire to merge OpenAI into Tesla and thus turning it for-profit, arguing that "this has always been about competition" for his rival.
He also added in a recent interview that Musk's "whole life is from a position of insecurity," adding: "I don't think he's like a happy person. I do feel for him."
Judge Rogers also illustrated that Musk's recent $98 billion bid for OpenAI "undermined" his arguments in this case, particularly those that claim that the company is capable of 'irreparable harm'.
