OpenAI Seeks Injunction Against Elon Musk, Citing Efforts To Undermine Company Strategy

Key Takeaways

• Elon Musk is suing OpenAI in a bid to prevent its conversion to a for-profit corporation.
• OpenAI has filed a counterclaim to prevent Musk’s legal attacks.
• The AI developer is seeking a broad injunction against Musk’s “tortious interference” with its business.

Responding to Elon Musk’s lawsuit, OpenAI has filed a counterclaim seeking a permanent injunction barring further “interference” with the organization.

If granted, such an injunction would dash Musk’s hopes of stalling OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit corporation and put an end to tactics like his $97 billion takeover bid.

OpenAI Fires Back at Musk

In a court filing dated April 9, OpenAI’s lawyers depicted Musk’s campaign as malicious and unwarranted.

The document offers a different account of OpenAI’s formative years to the one presented by Musk, who described his split from the company as amicable and not commercially motivated.

In contrast, the recent countercomplaint claims that OpenAI’s other founders refused to let the company be absorbed by Tesla, “so Musk quit, declaring that OpenAI would fail without him.”

When OpenAI later released ChatGPT, “Musk could not tolerate seeing such success for an enterprise he had abandoned and declared doomed,” the document states.

Musk Allegedly Motivated by ChatGPT Success

In the months and years that followed the release of ChatGPT, Musk “made it his project to take down OpenAI, and to build a direct competitor that would seize the technological lead,” the recent filing claims, referring to xAI’s Grok.

Citing Musk’s X posts, “harassing legal claims” and his “sham” bid for OpenAI’s assets, the complaint describes the ensuing campaign as “relentless” and “malicious.”

Alongside financial compensation, the suit calls for “a preliminary and permanent injunction of any further interference with Counterclaim Plaintiffs’ economic relationships.”

Seeking a Broad Injunction

OpenAI’s lawyers point out that Musk’s various requests for injunctions against the AI developer have been repeatedly denied. Given this, they argue that his continued litigatory assault amounts to a form of legal harassment.

The broad injunction OpenAI is seeking would presumably derail Musk’s original lawsuit and prevent him from staging further attacks both in and outside the courtroom.

Such an order is warranted “because there is no adequate remedy at law for Counterclaim Defendants’ tortious interference and the risk of future, irreparable harm is acute,” OpenAI argues.