Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI will proceed to trial, further escalating his years-long feud with the company and its CEO, Sam Altman.
“We appreciate the Court’s thorough and fair consideration and look forward to trial,” Musk’s lead counsel, Marc Toberoff, told CNBC’s David Faber Thursday in a statement following a hearing with U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit research company alongside several other researchers and executives in 2015. Musk departed from OpenAI’s board in 2018.
In the lawsuit, Musk alleged he agreed to start the company because he was promised that it would “chart a safer, more open course than profit-driven tech giants,” according to a complaint.
“The hearing confirms what we’ve maintained from the outset—there is substantial evidence that OpenAI’s leadership made knowingly false assurances to Mr. Musk about its charitable mission that they never honored in favor of their personal self-enrichment,” Toberoff said.
