The truth about Elon Musk and OpenAI
This page collects the facts and key events for anyone who wants to examine them for themselves.
Motivated by jealousy, regret for walking away from OpenAI and a desire to derail a competing AI company, Elon has spent years harassing OpenAI through baseless lawsuits and public attacks.
Journalists have reported on the existence of a smear campaign headed by Elon and his intermediaries, and there is also evidence(opens in a new window) that Elon coordinated with Mark Zuckerberg in repeated attempts to undermine OpenAI’s mission. Elon has also tried to weaponize the legal system to further his smear campaign(opens in a new window) (and even to unsuccessfully attempt(opens in a new window) to obtain our source code), as well as to attack the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation, which is focused on work in areas such as life sciences and curing diseases for everyone’s benefit.
Fortunately, courts have so far seen these baseless lawsuits for what they are. In one case, a jury of Californians found against Elon(opens in a new window) after carefully weighing all the evidence over a number of weeks, a verdict that the court has affirmed. Another case has also been dismissed(opens in a new window) by a federal court in California. Brazil’s competition regulator also dismissed(opens in a new window) yet another of Elon’s complaints in May. Despite courts and regulators throwing out his claims, we don’t expect Elon to stop his attempts to attack the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation.
Nevertheless, we remain focused on supporting the OpenAI Foundation and its work, as well as building great AI so people can just build things.