Elon Musk seeking up to $134 billion from OpenAI, Microsoft
Tech billionaire Elon Musk is seeking upwards of $134 billion (€115.4 billion) from OpenAI and Microsoft, arguing that he is owed "wrongful gains."
Court papers were filed at a California court on Friday and cited an expert valuation of what Musk was entitled to.
In his lawsuit, Musk makes the allegation that OpenAI — which he co-founded in 2015 — has abandoned its original purpose as a non-profit organization committed to ensuring that artificial intelligence research benefited humanity.
Musk argues that the company now mainly serves the interests of Microsoft.
What Musks legal team argues
Financial economist C. Paul Wazzan was the expert consulted by the South African billionaire's legal team. He said Musk fronted up $38 million in early financing for OpenAI and also provided key industry contacts and expertise.
Based on those contributions, Wazzan says Musk is entitled to a share of OpenAI's current value, estimated at between $65.5 billion and $109.43 billion.
Musk is also seeking between $13.3 billion and $25.06 billion from OpenAI's largest partner and investor, Microsoft.
"Just as an early investor in a startup company may realize gains many orders of magnitude greater than the investor's initial investment, the wrongful gains that OpenAI Microsoft have earned — and which Mr. Musk is now entitled to disgorge — are much larger than Mr. Musk's initial contributions," Musk's lawyer Steven Molo wrote.Elon Musk to become history's first trillionaire?
How has OpenAI responded
OpenAI said Musk’s latest legal bid is just another attempt to revive the same claims and is part of a broader pattern of harassment aimed at delaying OpenAI’s work.
OpenAI argues this is intended to benefit Musk’s own AI company, xAI, which he founded in 2023.
In a public response on Friday titled "The truth Elon left out," OpenAI accused Musk of "grossly misrepresenting the written record" in order to "further his harassment."
Musk left OpenAI in 2018 and now runs xAI, whose chatbot Grok competes with OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Edited by: Jenipher Camino Gonzalez
