{"id":45154,"date":"2026-05-20T08:33:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T08:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/45154\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T08:33:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T08:33:17","slug":"mirrors-of-greed-elon-musk-openai-and-the-tech-brat-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/45154\/","title":{"rendered":"Mirrors of greed: Elon Musk, OpenAI and the tech brat battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

The legal clash between Elon Musk and OpenAI exposes the profit-driven scramble shaping the future of artificial intelligence, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark<\/a>.<\/p>\n

THEY ARE A disagreeable bunch, with disagreeable ideas to match.<\/p>\n

The querulous brats behind the drive for technological servility and plugged-in stupidity were always going to scrap over which dystopian vision they most prefer. Elon Musk<\/a> thought he was onto something, hounding OpenAI<\/a> and its current CEO, Sam Altman<\/a>, for supposedly betraying<\/a> one of those visions.<\/p>\n

In his US$150 billion (AU$211 billion) legal action, Musk alleged that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman<\/a> deceived him into investing in the company in its initial stages when salad green altruism was modish and humanity mattered.<\/p>\n

The litigation was a prong in a broader strategy<\/a> to unseat Altman from OpenAI, sabotage the company\u2019s US$852 billion (AU$1.2 trillion) restructuring into a public benefit corporation and direct US$134 billion (AU$188.5 billion) to OpenAI\u2019s non-profit foundation.<\/p>\n

The deception centred on maintaining OpenAI as a non-profit entity and pursuing artificial intelligence (AI) ventures in ways beneficial to humanity. (When the tech brats have a stab at humour, they go in hard.) According to Musk, OpenAI had effectively stolen a charity. (Between 2015 and 2017, he had personally put US$44 million (AU$62 million) into OpenAI, funds, he argues, that were essentially misappropriated when the company sloughed its non-profit skin.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a><\/p>\n

In an introductory overview<\/a> of the company from December 2015, the company describes itself as a \u2018non-profit artificial intelligence research company\u2019 with the object of advancing \u2018digital intelligence in a way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact\u2019.<\/p>\n

How things change. On 18 May, a mere two hours were needed for a nine-member jury in Oakland, California, to unanimously find against Musk, basing their decision on that most technical of grounds: the statute of limitations. This left two civil claims \u2013 breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment \u2013 untested.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Having left OpenAI\u2019s board in 2018, Musk dithered till February 2024 to file suit. Musk claimed to have only discovered the company\u2019s abandonment of its non-profit mission in 2022, when Microsoft showed its interest with an investment of US$10 billion (AU$14.7 billion). OpenAI\u2019s legal team argued<\/a> that the pertinent events \u2013 the creation of a for-profit subsidiary in 2019, for instance, and Microsoft\u2019s initial injection of US$1 billion (AU$1.4 billion) that same year\u00a0\u2013 were already matters of common knowledge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Time on the statute of limitations was running well before 2022.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers<\/a> of the Northern District of California saw no reason<\/a> to question the jury\u2019s conclusion:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding, which is why I was prepared to dismiss on the spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The trial was impressively ugly and amounted to an insult to the stout intelligence of the public whose welfare both parties claim to be protecting. The legal representatives from both sides jousted over respective views on AI and the credibility of the disputants. Musk\u2019s lawyer, Steven Molo<\/a>, pressed<\/a> jurors to consider that several witnesses, including former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever<\/a>, doubted Altman\u2019s candour, going so far as to find him mendacious.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Why<\/a><\/p>\n

Altman had also conceded<\/a> under cross-examination that he \u201ctold the occasional lie\u201d. \u201cSam Altman\u2019s credibility is directly at issue,\u201d Molo crowed. \u201cIf you don\u2019t believe him, they cannot win.\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenAI, Musk accusingly asserted, had wrongfully attempted to enrich investors and insiders at the expense of the non-profit. Along the way, it had failed to make AI safety a matter central to its operations. Microsoft, he further argued, had always known that OpenAI cared more about money than altruism.<\/p>\n

A personal journal entry penned by Brockman in November 2017 was also instructive, baldly revealing<\/a> that OpenAI could not assert fidelity to its non-profit status if it intended to become a benefit corporation months later. So it came to pass that Altman, Brockman and OpenAI were accused of the very same temptations, frailties and indifference to safety found in Musk\u2019s own conduct.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the issue of safety and welfare, Musk\u2019s own xAI<\/a>, acquired by the space and rocket company SpaceX<\/a>, which is also part of the South African\u2019s fiefdom of misrule, has drawn the attention<\/a> of the European Commission and the\u00a0UK watchdog Ofcom<\/a> over Grok, a product that has been used to create sexualised images. The combination arising from xAI and SpaceX could lead to an initial public offering that would surpass OpenAI in size, which sinks the scurrilous suggestion of altruism. Provided things go smoothly, the world\u2019s first trillionaire might arise.<\/p>\n

OpenAI was hardly going to leave Musk\u2019s feeling of tech purity unchallenged. It was he, not OpenAI, who saw the shimmering dollar signs. Going back to 2017, he had floated the idea of a for-profit subsidiary with one caveat: he would have exclusive control. Failing this, he left the board in a huff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

OpenAI\u2019s attorney William Savitt suggested<\/a> that Musk, having failed to \u201cget his way at OpenAI\u201d, filed his lawsuit only after establishing his own competing AI company in 2023. But most saliently, he waited too long to claim breaches of the founding agreement regarding the building of safe artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. \u201cMr Musk may have the Midas touch in some areas, but not in AI,\u201d claimed Savitt.<\/p>\n

The decision will boost OpenAI\u2019s predatory reflexes. The non-profit status in this field has been found wanting and the scramble for profits has been given much encouragement in this most unprincipled of frontiers.<\/p>\n

\"Hell<\/a><\/p>\n

Sarah Kreps<\/a> of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University\u00a0opines<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision is likely to reassure investors and the broader AI sector\u00a0because it avoids a potentially chaotic outcome that could have challenged OpenAI\u2019s commercial structure, Microsoft partnership and future fund-raising plans.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This was by no means the first time Musk had taken to throwing a brief of anger against OpenAI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In March 2024, showing that intelligence can be authentically artificial, Musk\u00a0filed a lawsuit<\/a> citing a contract violation of a contract that did not exist. Using the misguided legal offices of Irell & Manella<\/a> \u2013 the same firm that erroneously claimed<\/a> on behalf of PETA<\/a> that a monkey could hold copyright \u2013 Musk pursued what Techdirt<\/a>\u2019s Mike Masnick<\/a> appropriately called<\/a> a \u2018vibes based\u2019 action.<\/p>\n

Masnick wrote:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u2018Elon doesn\u2019t have a contract with OpenAI which the company could have breached. And that\u2019s kinda a problem in a breach of contract lawsuit.\u2019\u00a0 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This insurmountable logic led Musk to abandon the lawsuit in June that year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Musk, the wells of indignation run deep. This is a man in the habit of losing or settling claims<\/a>, be it with former Twitter executives and employees of the social platform now known as X, losing to investors in that same company for misleading public statements made during his untidy, often chaotic takeover, or having his lawsuit promptly dismissed against advertisers that exited that troubled platform.<\/p>\n

While such behaviour should draw scorn, those drawing benefit from Musk’s litigious pathologies \u2013 lawyers, in the main \u2013 can only be grateful.<\/p>\n

A credulous Shubha Ghosh<\/a>, lawyer and law academic at Syracuse University, says<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a lot of ways, he is just another businessperson asserting his rights.\u00a0I don\u2019t think he\u2019s abusing the legal system. Whether he uses it effectively, I\u2019m not sure.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Wrong, certainly, on the first count.<\/p>\n

Dr\u00a0Binoy Kampmark<\/a>\u00a0was a Cambridge Scholar and is a lecturer at\u00a0RMIT University<\/a>. You can follow Dr Kampmark on Twitter\u00a0@BKampmark<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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