A federal judge on March 4 rejected billionaire Elon Musk’s attempt to halt OpenAI’s transition from nonprofit to for-profit status.
Emails introduced by Musk in the legal case, which was filed in California, are suggestive but “on balance, the Court finds the emails are insufficient for purposes of the high burden required for a preliminary injunction and the question of likelihood of success on the merits to be a toss-up,” U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers wrote in a 16-page decision.
Musk alleged in the lawsuit that Sam Altman, OpenAI’s founder, deceived him because, while soliciting donations, he portrayed OpenAI as a nonprofit that would provide open-source data on artificial intelligence, only to later move the entity towards operating for profit.
In one email, Altman wrote that the technology would be owned by a foundation and “used for the good of the world.”
Lawyers for Musk said that the missives supported his position that his donations were contingent on OpenAI remaining a nonprofit.
Attorneys for Altman and other defendants said there is no evidence that the donations were solicited subject to any such commitment.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said that she disagreed with that framing. “At the