New Delhi, April 25 (IANS). Tesla CEO Elon Musk has dropped fraud charges against OpenAI and its co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, narrowing the scope of his lawsuit before the trial is set to begin.
According to reports, US court judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has allowed Musk to limit the case, leaving only two claims out of the 26 allegations included in his November 2024 case—improper profits and breach of charitable trust.
Jury selection in this case will begin from Monday in the Federal Court in Oakland, California.
Musk alleges that OpenAI has deviated from its initial non-profit purpose. He says that the company turned itself into a profit making company after taking billions of dollars of funding from Microsoft.
Musk is demanding damages of up to $134 billion in this case. They say that if they win the case, the money should be given to the charitable arm of OpenAI.
He has also demanded from the court that OpenAI should be made a non-profit organization again and Sam Altman and Greg Brockman should be removed from their posts.
However, OpenAI, its officials and Microsoft have denied all these allegations and said that Musk is making new demands before the trial.
This trial will take place in two phases. In the first phase, the jury will hear arguments from both sides and issue a non-binding advisory verdict.
In the second phase, the judge will decide what action should be taken on Musk’s demands.
Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but stepped down from its board in 2018. He later started his AI company XAI in 2023, which further increased competition in the AI sector.
Earlier in April, Musk had sought the removal of Altman and Brockman as part of his legal challenge against turning the AI firm into a profit-making entity. According to reports, in a petition filed in court, Musk said that the purpose of his lawsuit is to reverse the restructuring of OpenAI and restore it as a non-profit research organization.
–IANS
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