Elon Musk filed a 46-page complaint in San Francisco Superior Court on Thursday seeking to block OpenAI’s planned conversion to a for-profit entity and demanding that the ChatGPT maker return to its original nonprofit mission, according to techcrunch.com.
The suit, first reported by techcrunch.com, alleges that OpenAI’s board breached contractual promises made in 2015 when Musk supplied much of the early funding. Court documents show Musk contends the 2019 creation of the capped-profit OpenAI LP and the subsequent close partnership with Microsoft violate the founding agreement that the company’s breakthroughs would remain open and benefit humanity. The filing asks the court to halt the conversion process, compel OpenAI to make its research public, and prevent Microsoft from exploiting the technology commercially.
OpenAI’s board has already begun the formal shift to a Delaware public-benefit corporation, a move that would let it raise the tens of billions it says are needed to train next-generation models, according to techcrunch.com. The structure mirrors Anthropic’s 2023 switch to a public-benefit corporation after raising $750 million from Google, and follows Inflection AI’s similar governance change backed by $1.3 billion from Microsoft. Regulators in California and Delaware have yet to rule on whether charitable assets can legally be rolled into a for-profit without compensation, leaving the entire sector watching the outcome.
A case-management conference is scheduled for 30 June, when the court will set a timeline for discovery and any preliminary injunction hearing, according to techcrunch.com. Until then, OpenAI must file its response by 14 June, and both sides have signaled they will seek expedited proceedings to resolve the governance question before the company’s next funding round, which Reuters reports could value the startup above $90 billion.