The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, a founding board member of the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, now has claimed Altman had “set aflame” OpenAI’s founding agreement by signing an investment deal with Microsoft.

Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, of betraying its foundational mission by putting the pursuit of profit ahead of the benefit of humanity.

The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco on Thursday, claims OpenAI is now developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) – a theoretical form of AI that can perform a range of tasks at or above a human level of intelligence – for profit rather than for the benefit of humankind.

“OpenAI Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source, de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft. Under its new board, it is not just developing but is refining an AGI to maximise profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity,” the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit aims for the company’s partnership with Microsoft. It seeks to force OpenAI to follow its “longstanding practice of making AI research and technology developed at OpenAI available to the public,” which means open-source the company’s software and models. This part of the lawsuit runs into the fact that OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft is specifically for the company’s pre-AGI technology.

Musk stepped down from OpenAI’s board in 2018 after failing to convince Altman and other founders to let him take control of the organization. This represents another challenge for the lawsuit, Quinn told the New York Times: “If he were a member of the board of directors, I would say, ‘Ooh, strong case.’ If this was filed by the Delaware secretary of state, I would say, ‘Ooh they’re in trouble.’ But he doesn’t have standing. He doesn’t have a case.”