Khaberni - Legal documents revealed on Friday that Elon Musk is seeking to obtain up to $134 billion from OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming that he deserves the "unlawful gains" they achieved from his early support of the emerging AI company.
The billionaire businessman stated in the lawsuit filed in a federal court, before considering his case against the two companies, that OpenAI earned between $65.5 billion and $109.4 billion thanks to his contributions when he co-founded OpenAI in 2015, while Microsoft earned between $13.3 billion and $25.1 billion.
The lawyers for OpenAI, Microsoft, and Musk have not yet responded to requests for comment outside business hours.
OpenAI describes the lawsuit as "baseless" and part of Musk's "harassment" campaign. A lawyer for Microsoft said there is no evidence that the company "aided and abetted" OpenAI.
Musk, who left OpenAI in 2018 and now runs the chatbot-developing company X.AI, claims that OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, violated its founding mission by undergoing a major restructuring to become a profit-making entity.
A judge in Oakland, California, ruled this month that a jury should consider the case, which is expected to begin in April.
The case file states that Musk contributed about $38 million, or 60 percent of the early foundational funding for OpenAI, and assisted in staff hiring, connecting founders with key contacts, and lending credibility to the project at its inception.
It is stated that "the unlawful gains achieved by OpenAI and Microsoft - which Musk is now entitled to recover - are significantly greater than Mr. Musk's initial contributions".
