Musk previously hoped a jury would award maximum punitive damages.
While Musk has spent much of today loudly criticizing the Apple/OpenAI deal, he also sought to drop his lawsuit against OpenAI, a court filing today showed.
In the filing, Musk’s lawyer Morgan Chu notified the Superior Court of California in San Francisco of Musk’s request for dismissal of his entire complaint without prejudice.
There are currently no further details as to why Musk decided to drop the suit.
Musk’s lawsuit accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman of drifting away from its original nonprofit mission by forming a for-profit subsidiary later. It also claimed that OpenAI breached its founding agreement to make notable AI advancements freely available to the public. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and previously provided funding but is no longer with the company after leaving in 2018.
“To this day, OpenAI Inc.’s website continues to profess that its charter is to ensure that AGI ‘benefits all of humanity,'” the lawsuit read. “In reality, however, OpenAI Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft.”
Musk had previously requested a 10-day jury trial that sought an injunction and maximum punitive damages, but OpenAI had denied that he was entitled to any relief.
“The complaint fails to state a claim for breach of contract, as Musk cannot allege the existence of any ‘Founding Agreement,'” OpenAI had argued, calling Musk’s complaint a “fiction.”
“He attaches no contract by that name to the complaint, and the documents he does attach contradict his allegations as to the alleged terms of the agreement,” OpenAI argued.
Musk’s request for dismissal comes the day before the hearing where discovery was supposed to start in the lawsuit. OpenAI had objected to some of Musk’s discovery requests for confidential information—with both sides arguing over terms of a protective order. Now, OpenAI has seemingly escaped from sharing any internal documents that it perhaps doesn’t want Musk or the public to have access to.
Musk has so far not posted about his request to dismiss the lawsuit on X, seemingly more focused on attacking the OpenAI/Apple deal.
Previously, OpenAI had released a blog clarifying the company’s relationship with Musk in light of the lawsuit. In it, OpenAI shared emails between its execs and Musk, while confirming that Musk had suggested that OpenAI should “attach to Tesla as its cash cow.”
On X, Musk threatened to ban Apple devices at Tesla and his other companies over the deal, which some users interpreted as Musk being jealous of the OpenAI deal.
