Musk submitted an injunction application to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and sued OpenAI again.

The content of the prosecution includes: OpenAI once instructed investors not to invest in rival large model platforms such as Musk’s xAI; OpenAI and Microsoft monopolize 70% of the generative AI market, and the cross-appointment of board members violates the "Gram" The Leiden Act and the Sherman Act;

OpenAI violates its original founding intentions and is transforming the business into a for-profit business while demanding a return to the original open source product concept.

This is the third time Musk has sued OpenAI since the beginning of 2024, but there was no result in the first two times. Considering Musk's current huge influence in American politics and technology, OpenAI will be very dangerous this time.

At present, the California court has disclosed the 36-page lawsuit filed by Musk. The main contents will be explained below.

Violation of the Sherman Act and Clayton Act

According to the complaint, OpenAI proposed a condition to investors in its October 2024 financing: If they want to receive investment quotas, they must promise not to invest in companies that compete with OpenAI. This condition was confirmed by multiple media outlets and internal emails, and Musk himself confirmed that at least one major investor declined to invest in xAI after OpenAI’s funding round.

This approach is a typical group boycott, in which a group of competitors join forces to prevent other competitors from obtaining necessary resources or market opportunities.

According to Section 1 of the Sherman Act of the United States, any contract, combination, or conspiracy that has the purpose or effect of restraining trade or commercial activities is illegal. Musk believes that the actions of OpenAI and Microsoft constitute such a conspiracy to exclude competitors and thereby consolidate their leadership position in the generative AI market.

Article 8 of the Clayton Act, the antitrust law, clearly states that it prevents competing companies from having common directors or senior managers to avoid potential conflicts of interest and anti-competitive behavior. . That is, the provision prohibits a person from serving as a director or officer of two or more competing companies at the same time. This provision applies if the sales of these companies in a certain area exceed a certain threshold and there is substantial competition between them.

Microsoft's Reid Hoffman serves on the boards of both OpenAI and Microsoft, and Sam Altman, as the CEO of OpenAI, has a close relationship with Microsoft. In addition, there are a number of other officers and directors who hold key positions in both businesses. This cross-fertilization can lead to conflicts of interest, whereby these executives may make decisions in favor of one side rather than fairly considering the interests of all parties involved.

Require OpenAI to open source its products and prevent it from becoming a for-profit enterprise

In 2015, when Musk co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman and others, it was run as a non-profit organization with the mission of developing and share safe and open AI technology to benefit all mankind.

As OpenAI develops, it seems to be increasingly inclined to commercialize and privatize its technology, deviating from its original mission and ignoring open source principles.

Musk is worried that if OpenAI continues to follow this path, the development of AI technology will be restricted, and the safety and ethical issues of the technology will not be given sufficient attention, which may eventually lead to adversely affect society as a whole.

Musk asked OpenAI to revisit its commitment to open source and take action to reopen its products to the public. This is a critical step to ensure that OpenAI can return to its original mission and continue to serve the public interest as a non-profit organization. By being open source, OpenAI can regain public trust and restore its image as a responsible AI research organization.

In the business field, the open source model helps promote the widespread dissemination of technology and the prosperity of the innovation ecosystem. When OpenAI's products are open source, developers and researchers around the world can carry out secondary development and innovation based on these open source results. This not only accelerates the iteration speed of AI technology, but also attracts more talents to participate in the research and application of related technologies.

Take OpenAI’s open-source speech model Whisper as an example. As a multi-language speech recognition system, its powerful performance has provided strong support for the development of speech recognition technology and promoted the expansion of related applications;< /p>

Clip has shown unique value in the intersection of natural language and image processing, making it possible to process image tasks based on text description, and bringing new development opportunities to creative industries, content search and other fields.

In addition, when Musk initially provided funds for OpenAI, he made a donation based on its non-profit purpose and mission. They expected that their funds could be used to promote the safe and open development of AI technology and benefit society. If OpenAI were to turn into a for-profit enterprise, it would go against its original intentions and their funds could be used to pursue commercial profits rather than the public good.

OpenAI’s employees and researchers may be affected by the organizational transformation. In a non-profit model, employees and researchers may focus more on technological innovation and the realization of social value.

Once transformed into a for-profit enterprise, the company's operational focus may shift more to shareholder interests, and employees' working environment and research directions may change.

For example, the selection of research projects may consider business returns more than the long-term significance of technological innovation, which may lead to a decline in some employees' identification with the organization, and may evenTriggering brain drain and affecting OpenAI's technology research and development capabilities and innovation vitality.

Regarding this lawsuit, netizens said that OpenAI should be open source and remain open and transparent in the process of moving towards AGI (artificial general intelligence). It's such a shame that Sam Altman shut everything down. This is not how it should be.

Musk is causing trouble everywhere.

The most interesting part here is not just the injunction, but how it highlights the growing tension between open source advocacy and commercial AI development. This could set an important precedent for the future of the industry.

Musk always likes to do something in the field of technology.

Now if OpenAI becomes a profitable company, shouldn't Musk, as the original "investor" in OpenAI, rather than someone who donated money to a non-profit, also get a large ownership stake in the profitable company?

If he contributed about one-third of the initial capital, he should become a majority shareholder and have voting rights when the company turns profitable.

I hope Musk wins, Sam Altman is a criminal who only cares about his wallet.

No one wants to mess with Musk in the next four years. He has a lot of power.

The initial hearing will be held on January 7, 2025 at 2:00 pm in the Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers Courtroom inside the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland, California.