Elon Musk expands lawsuit against OpenAI, adding Microsoft and antitrust claims

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk expanded his lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI, ding federal antitrust and or claims and ding OpenAI's largest financial backer Microsoft as a defendant. Musk’s amended lawsuit, filed on Thursday night in federal court in Oakland, California, said Microsoft and OpenAI illegally sought to monopolize market for generative artificial intelligence and sideline competitors.

Like Musk's original August complaint, it accused OpenAI and its chief executive, Samuel Altman, of violating contract provisions by putting profits ahe of public good in push to vance AI.

“Never before has a corporation gone from tax-exempt charity to a $157 billion for-profit, market-paralyzing gorgon — and in just eight years,” complaint said. It seeks to void OpenAI's license with Microsoft and force m to divest “ill-gotten” gains.

OpenAI in a statement said latest lawsuit "is even more baseless and overreaching than previous ones."

Microsoft and lawyers for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Musk has a long-simmering opposition to OpenAI, a startup he co-founded and that has since become face of generative AI through billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft.

Musk has gained new prominence as a key force in US President-elect Donald Trump's incoming ministration. Trump named Musk to a new role designed to cut government waste, after he donated millions of dollars to Trump's Republican campaign.

expanded lawsuit said OpenAI and Microsoft violated antitrust law by conditioning investment opportunities on agreements not to deal with companies’ rivals. It said companies' exclusive licensing agreement amounted to a merger lacking regulatory approvals.

In a court filing last month, OpenAI accused Musk of pursuing lawsuit as part of an “increasingly blusterous campaign to harass OpenAI for his own competitive vantage.”