Musk expands lawsuit against OpenAI, adding Microsoft and antitrust claims

Musk has expanded his lawsuit against OpenAI to add Microsoft alleging antitrust in the AI market.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk expanded his lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI, adding federal antitrust and other claims and adding OpenAI's largest financial backer Microsoft as a defendant.

Musk’s amended lawsuit, filed on Thursday night in federal court in Oakland, California, said Microsoft and OpenAI illegally sought to monopolize the market for generative artificial intelligence and sideline competitors.

Like Musk's original August complaint, it accused OpenAI and its chief executive, Samuel Altman, of violating contract provisions by putting profits ahead of the public good in the push to advance AI.

“Never before has a corporation gone from tax-exempt charity to a $157 billion for-profit, market-paralyzing gorgon — and in just eight years,” the complaint said. It seeks to void OpenAI's license with Microsoft and force them to divest “ill-gotten” gains.

OpenAI in a statement said the latest lawsuit "is even more baseless and overreaching than the previous ones." Microsoft declined to comment.

"Microsoft’s anticompetitive practices have escalated," Musk's attorney Marc Toberoff said in a statement. "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

Musk has a long-simmering opposition to OpenAI, a startup he co-founded and that has since become the face of generative AI through billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft.