OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman on Monday had a win over Elon Musk in a much-anticipated court battle between the artificial intelligence-focused company and the billionaire owner of X.
Mr Musk, who was an early backer of OpenAI, had sought to prove that Mr Altman and his company had acted deceptively in changing its status from a non-profit to a "for-profit" subsidiary.
The company has maintained that it is overseen by a non-profit organisation, the OpenAI Foundation. But Mr Musk said Mr Altman "stole a charity" by changing OpenAI's business model.
A California jury was not convinced by Mr Musk's case, however, and denied his legal team's request that Mr Altman be removed from the company and that billions in investments be nullified.
This is not the end of the case, as Mr Musk has indicated that he plans to appeal against the decision.
"The judge and jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality," Mr Musk posted to his social media platform X.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss was referring to the jury implying that he took too long to litigate the matter, several years after OpenAI's business classification was changed.
"I will be filing an appeal with the Ninth Circuit, because creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America," Mr Musk continued.
OpenAI is expected to file for an initial public offering this year, in what could be very profitable for those who work at the company, potentially creating new billionaires and millionaires.
In 2017, the two tech executives appeared to be friendly as Mr Altman interviewed Mr Musk for start-up accelerator Y Combinator, in which they discussed the importance of the ethical implementation of AI.
At the time, they were both part of OpenAI, a new company on the Silicon Valley scene before AI was dominating global headlines.
According to OpenAI, Mr Musk questioned whether that was the best way to go, but he says he preferred to keep it a non-profit.
On OpenAI's website, the company claims that in the autumn of 2017, Mr Musk “demanded majority equity, absolute control and to be chief executive”, with OpenAI operating as a for-profit company.
The next year, OpenAI said it would not give Mr Musk complete control of the company, and that he resigned as co-chairman shortly after.
At the time, it was said that Mr Musk had left OpenAI to focus on Tesla and Starlink, and to avoid a conflict of interests. Regardless of his motive, he missed out on the company's introduction of ChatGPT.
Even though OpenAI appears to have emerged from the trial victorious, the weeks-long legal battle led to dozens of emails and text messages, which were unflattering for Mr Altman, being made public.
Minutes after the jury's decision on Monday, in a post on X, Mr Altman did not address the trial, but instead touted OpenAI's latest iteration of its flagship AI tool.
"ChatGPT has gotten so much better with the latest update," he wrote. "Really proud of the team for this one."
