If you let Sam Altman’s lawyers tell it, Elon Musk’s ongoing battle against OpenAI stems from his personal vendetta against Altman and OpenAI — a company that has seen its business boom since it refused to cede control to Musk in 2018.
In a Wednesday filing related to Musk’s August 2024 lawsuit against OpenAI, lawyers for Altman and the company laid out Altman’s version of events that led to the breakup between the two tech titans. It has been the most detailed account thus far of Altman’s side of what went down in his fight with Musk.
“Musk could not tolerate seeing such success for an enterprise he had abandoned and declared doomed,” the filing read. “He made it his project to take down OpenAI, and to build a direct competitor that would seize the technological lead—not for humanity but for Elon Musk.”
The filing continued: “The ensuing campaign has been relentless. Through press attacks, malicious campaigns broadcast to Musk’s more than 200 million followers on the social media platform he controls, a pretextual demand for corporate records, harassing legal claims, and a sham bid for OpenAI’s assets, Musk has tried every tool available to harm OpenAI.”
OpenAI’s filing on Wednesday came the same day the judge in the case set a March 2026 trial date in this clash of titans lawsuit. The company’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
OpenAI said it was counter-suing Musk in a scathing series of X posts published on Wednesday. The ChatGPT maker also pointed to older blog posts it had published on their pivot from a nonprofit approach as well as their email exchanges with Musk.
“Elon’s nonstop actions against us are just bad-faith tactics to slow down OpenAI and seize control of the leading AI innovations for his personal benefit,” OpenAI wrote on X on Wednesday.
“Elon’s never been about the mission. He’s always had his own agenda. He tried to seize control of OpenAI and merge it with Tesla as a for-profit — his own emails prove it. When he didn’t get his way, he stormed off,” the company added.
Representatives for OpenAI referred BI to its recent X posts and the Wednesday filing when contacted for comment.
Musk cofounded OpenAI with Altman in 2015 but left the company’s board in 2018. Musk said in 2019 that he left because Tesla was competing for the same talent as OpenAI. Musk said he also “didn’t agree with some of what the OpenAI team wanted to do. Musk did not specify what those differences were.
Since then, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has been a vocal critic of Altman’s leadership of OpenAI. Musk had initially filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in February 2024 but withdrew it in June. He later refiled the lawsuit in August.
In his lawsuit, Musk accused OpenAI of violating its nonprofit mission by partnering with Microsoft. Musk’s lawyers argued that OpenAI’s executives “deceived” him into cofounding the company by playing on his fears about AI’s existential risks.
In February, an Elon-Musk-led investor group made a $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI. Altman dismissed Musk’s unsolicited takeover bid.
“The company is not for sale, neither is the mission,” Altman said of Musk’s bid in an interview with Sky News in February.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment from BI.
