The dramatic suit between OpenAI and its estranged co-founder, billionaire Elon Musk, shows no sign of letting up.
In a filing Wednesday, attorneys for OpenAI and the other defendants in the case, including CEO Sam Altman, called for Musk to be enjoined from “further unlawful and unfair action” and “held responsible for the damage he has already caused” to the defendants.
“OpenAI is resilient,” reads the filing. “But Musk’s actions have taken a toll. Should his campaign persist, greater harm is threatened — to OpenAI’s ability to govern in service of its mission, to the relationships that are essential to furthering that mission, and to the public interest […] Musk’s continued attacks on OpenAI, culminating most recently in the fake takeover bid designed to disrupt OpenAI’s future, must cease.”
Attorneys for Musk didn’t immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
Musk’s suit against OpenAI accuses the startup of abandoning its nonprofit mission to ensure its AI research benefits all humanity. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit in 2015, but converted to a “capped-profit” structure in 2019, and now seeks to restructure once more into a public benefit corporation.
Musk had sought a preliminary injunction to halt OpenAI’s transition to a for-profit. In March, a federal judge denied the request — but permitted the case to go to a jury trial in spring 2026.
Musk, once a key supporter of OpenAI, is now perhaps its greatest adversary. The stakes are high for OpenAI, which reportedly needs to complete its for-profit conversion by 2025 or relinquish some of the capital it has raised in recent months.
A group of organizations, including nonprofits and labor groups like the California Teamsters, petitioned California Attorney General Rob Bonta this week to stop OpenAI from becoming a for-profit entity, claiming that the company “failed to protect its charitable assets” and is actively “subverting its charitable mission to advance safe artificial intelligence.”
Encode, the nonprofit organization that co-sponsored California’s ill-fated SB 1047 AI safety legislation, voiced similar concerns in an amicus brief filed in December.
OpenAI has said that its conversion would preserve its nonprofit arm and infuse it with resources to be spent on “charitable initiatives” in sectors such as health care, education, and science.
