- Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in February, only to briefly withdraw it in June.
- The withdrawal came after Musk met with Altman in March, per The WSJ.
- Musk has since refiled the lawsuit and coined a new nickname for Altman: “Swindly Sam.”
Elon Musk briefly withdrew his lawsuit against OpenAI in June after he had a conversation with Sam Altman in March, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
Musk and Altman met at the sidelines of a technology conference in Big Sky, Montana. The pair shared a hug after speaking, the Journal reported, citing information from people who attended the conference.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO filed a lawsuit against the ChatGPT maker in February. Musk accused OpenAI of violating its nonprofit mission by partnering with Microsoft. The billionaire cofounded OpenAI with Altman but left its board in 2018.
But Musk withdrew the lawsuit on June 11, just a day before a judge was set to consider OpenAI’s request to dismiss it.
“More on this later,” Musk wrote in an X post shortly after news of the lawsuit’s withdrawal broke out.
In August, Musk refiled the lawsuit. This time around, Musk’s lawyers argued that OpenAI’s executives had “deceived” him into cofounding the company by playing on his concerns about AI’s existential risks.
Last month, Musk amended his lawsuit to include Microsoft as a defendant and accused Microsoft and OpenAI of forming a monopoly.
Then, on Friday, Musk’s lawyers filed an injunction against OpenAI to stop its transition to a for-profit entity.
When approached for comment, a spokesperson for OpenAI told Business Insider that Musk’s latest filing, “which again recycles the same baseless complaints, continues to be utterly without merit.”
Musk and Altman’s rocky relationship
Musk and Altman’s relationship has been turbulent. In addition to suing Altman, Musk recently gave him a nickname: “Swindly Sam.”
Experts BI spoke to in March said that Musk’s real goal with his lawsuits may have less to do with winning and more to do with publicly dragging Altman and OpenAI.
“These types of lawsuits can air a lot of dirty laundry, and it can be a major distraction that could impact their day-to-day operations,” David Hoffman, a contract law expert from the University of Pennsylvania, told BI’s Grace Kay at the time.
Musk has also been hard at work at his own AI ventures, pitching investors on his vision for Tesla as an AI company.
In April, Musk said in an earnings call that he thinks it’s fundamentally wrong to “value Tesla as just like an auto company.”
“We should be thought of as an AI or robotics company,” Musk said in April.
That’s in addition to the work Musk has done with xAI, an AI startup he launched in 2023.
xAI is reportedly valued at $50 billion, more than what Musk paid to acquire Twitter back in 2022, per a story published by the Journal on November 20.
Representatives for Altman at OpenAI and Musk did not respond to requests for comment from BI.
