Elon Musk has withdrawn his lawsuit against OpenAI and its co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman for violating the startup's founding mission, AFP reported.
In a California court, Musk accused the artificial intelligence (AI) company he helped found in 2015 of breaching its commitment to create AI for the benefit of society after it became a nonprofit backed by Microsoft .
The lawyer representing Musk asked the court to dismiss the entire case without giving a reason.
The tycoon, who left OpenAI in 2018, claimed in his original complaint that the creator of ChatGPT was always intended as a non-profit organization.
But he says recent board changes mean OpenAI is now effectively a subsidiary of software giant Microsoft.
Musk has made similar accusations in the past, and OpenAI and Microsoft have denied them.
OpenAI captured the public imagination in late 2022 with the release of its chatbot ChatGPT, which can generate poems and essays and even ace exams.
The company has also developed image and video generation tools that are considered leaders in their field.
Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI since 2019, poured billions more into the technology last year. The giant firm stepped in when OpenAI's board fired CEO Altman last November, hiring him and offering to take on any employees unhappy with his ouster.
OpenAI's board of directors reversed course after discontent rose within the company, reinstating Altman and replacing several board members.
OpenAI began as a non-profit organization dedicated to the development of "artificial general intelligence" (AI) - a vague term loosely defined as a type of AI that would surpass human capabilities in all measures of intelligence.
The idea was for OpenAI to ensure that this technology would be safe for humanity. But Musk's lawsuit says that founding principle has been "turned upside down."
"To this day, OpenAI Inc.'s website continues to claim that its charter will ensure that AI "benefits all of humanity. In reality, however, OpenAI Inc. has become a closed subsidiary of the world's largest technology company : Microsoft," the complaint states.
After leaving OpenAI, Musk joined the ranks of critics warning that superintelligence could spell the end of humanity. Last year, he also launched his own artificial intelligence company, xAI, and said he wanted to raise $1 billion from investors.
On June 10, Musk expressed his anger at OpenAI, resenting its partnership with Apple.
"Apple has no idea what actually happens after they hand over your data to OpenAI. They're selling you for nothing," Musk wrote in a post on X. | BGNES
