Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit entity in 2015 along with Sam Altman and others, has suffered a setback. His lawsuit against Altman for turning a carved-out subsidiary of OpenAI into a profit-oriented entity has been rejected by a US court.
Musk’s suit was found to be too late under the law of limitations, which prevents legal action against an event after a specified time lapse. In this case, Musk ought to have sought legal recourse within three years.
Musk alleged that Altman had diverted startup funds provided by him for do-gooder goals into a profit chase. Although Musk lost the case, he succeeded in giving renewed publicity to a controversy that has shadowed OpenAI ever since late 2023, when its board tried to oust Altman for taking the AI lab commercial.
Since there might be big money to be made in this field, perhaps it was inevitable. To take on OpenAI, Musk started xAI, which is now part of his space venture. Today, both OpenAI and SpaceX are set to go public and raise jaw-dropping sums of money for business pursuits. The American AI sector’s espousal of social causes seems like ancient history. And that shouldn’t surprise us.