At the origin of this acrimonious conflict was the complaint filed by Elon Musk last August, after having withdrawn a similar a few months earlier. He criticizes Openai, as well as his leaders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, for having betrayed the original mission of the organization. Created in 2015 as a non -profit entity so that AI benefits humanity, Openai adopted a model for profit capped in 2019 and now aims to become a Benefit Corporation (PBC), a mission company. It is this strategic and financial turn that Musk ardently disputes.
The trial brought by Musk precisely seeks to block this structural transformation. If its request for a preliminary injunction aimed at immediately stopping the change of status was rejected by the federal judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, the latter nevertheless accepted the principle of an accelerated trial which should lead to a decisive battle in the fall 2025. Some sources even mention a trial before jury in the spring of 2026. Major on the legal structure and OpenAi mission will take place.
This legal showdown is coupled with intense commercial and personal rivalry. Since its stormy departure from Openai in 2018, against a backdrop of strategic disagreements, Musk has launched its own IA, XAI company, which has become a direct competitor on the booming market of large language models as Grok 3. The battle is therefore played as much in the field of founding principles and the ethics of AI as on that, very competitive, of the development and sales of artificial intelligences.
