OpenAI countersues Elon Musk in legal dispute over ChatGPT maker’s business ambitions

Advertisement

Advertise with us

OpenAI is suing Elon Musk for unfair competition and interfering with its business relationships with investors and customers, escalating a legal battle between the ChatGPT maker and the billionaire who helped bankroll the artificial intelligence startup a decade ago.

Read this article for free:


By clicking the button above, an account will be created and you will begin to receive some of our recommended newsletters. You may opt out of any newsletter by visiting your Email and Communication Preferences page or by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of any email.

or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $1.44 a week*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*Billed as $5.77 plus GST every four weeks. After 52 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/04/2025 (560 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OpenAI is suing Elon Musk for unfair competition and interfering with its business relationships with investors and customers, escalating a legal battle between the ChatGPT maker and the billionaire who helped bankroll the artificial intelligence startup a decade ago.

The allegations against Musk were filed Wednesday in a federal court in California as a counterclaim to the Tesla CEO’s lawsuit against OpenAI, which is heading to a jury trial next year.

Musk, an early OpenAI investor who now runs his own AI firm, xAI, along with Tesla, SpaceX, social media platform X and President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, began a legal offensive against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman more than a year ago.

FILE - The OpenAI logo appears on a mobile phone in front of a screen showing part of the company website in this photo taken on Nov. 21, 2023 in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)
FILE - The OpenAI logo appears on a mobile phone in front of a screen showing part of the company website in this photo taken on Nov. 21, 2023 in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

He first sued for breach of contract over what he said was the betrayal of its founding aims as a nonprofit research laboratory, and later expanded his claims.

A federal judge in March denied Musk’s request for a court order blocking OpenAI from converting itself to a for-profit company but said she could expedite a trial to consider Musk’s claims. She offered to hold a trial later this year, but it has been pushed back to March 2026.

In this week’s counterclaim, OpenAI accuses Musk of making a “sham bid” in February to buy a controlling stake in the nonprofit.

Musk and a group of investors offered $97.4 billion for OpenAI’s assets, a number that OpenAI said Musk pulled from the character 974 Praf in the science fiction novel “Look to Windward” by Scottish writer Iain Banks. Musk has also named some of his SpaceX machinery after ships in the book.

OpenAI said it “recognized the bid as a feint” but has repeatedly had to divert resources and “suffered harm as a result of Musk’s unlawful campaign of harassment, interference, and misinformation.”

Musk attorney Marc Toberoff responded in an email late Wednesday and said that if OpenAI’s board of directors had “genuinely considered the bid, as they were obligated to do, they would have seen how serious it was.”

“It’s telling that having to pay fair market value for OpenAI’s assets allegedly ‘interferes’ with their business plans,” Toberoff wrote.

————

The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that allows OpenAI access to part of AP’s text archives.

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Tall Shadows brings original compositions to Faust screening

Sheldon Birnie 7 minute read Preview

Tall Shadows brings original compositions to Faust screening

Sheldon Birnie 7 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

In a time of plague and crisis, a good man makes a deal with the devil, in hopes of saving his community from death and destruction. But when his community turns on him, he finds his newfound power too much to resist.

The German folktale of Faust and his bargain with Mephisto dates back to the 15th century, while Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s tragedy was first published over 200 years ago.

In 1926, F.W. Murnau’s German-expressionist take on the tale debuted on the silver screen. A century on, viewers remain entranced with the fantastical images of Faust, Mephisto, demons riding skeletal steeds through the heavens, and more, created using cutting-edge practical effects for the time.

Just in time for Halloween, Montreal-based avant-goth duo Tall Shadows will bring Murnau’s Faust to the Park Theatre on Wednesday, Oct. 28, performing an original score in celebration of the classic silent film’s 100th anniversary.

Read
2:00 AM CDT

Researchers: lights at Henderson crossing ‘long overdue’

Maggie Macintosh 6 minute read Preview

Researchers: lights at Henderson crossing ‘long overdue’

Maggie Macintosh 6 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

Six months after a fatal collision at a crosswalk on Henderson Highway, two traffic safety researchers question why the intersection remains an outlier that is missing key flashing lights.

The City of Winnipeg is being urged to install “backflashers” to better protect road users moving in all directions at the intersection where a 32-year-old father died in the spring.

“It’s these little, mundane, non-sexy engineering problems that can cause everything right up to fatality,” said Curt Pankratz, an associate professor at the University of Winnipeg who studies traffic engineering and policymaking.

On April 19, shortly before sunrise, Gabe Beardy was struck when he was crossing the six-lane thoroughfare at Neil Avenue.

Read
2:00 AM CDT

Dozens, if not hundreds, of wounds inflicted on man, murder trial told

Dean Pritchard 3 minute read Preview

Dozens, if not hundreds, of wounds inflicted on man, murder trial told

Dean Pritchard 3 minute read Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026

The body of a Winnipeg man beaten to death in a North End drug house was outside a Flora Avenue church for nearly a week before it was discovered, a court has been told.

Read
Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026

Today’s horoscope

Georgia Nicols 4 minute read Preview

Today’s horoscope

Georgia Nicols 4 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

MOON ALERT: Avoid shopping (except food and gas) and important decisions after 10 p.m. today. The moon is in Pisces.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

This is a great day to make art, which is good news for your sign as so many of you are artisans. (You can do anything with your hands, even without training.) Enjoy time alone and give yourself the luxury of doing what you want to do.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Read
2:00 AM CDT

You’re facing double trouble with infatuation

Maureen Scurfield 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I started enjoying the company of women in my running group so much that I ran more and more, and dropped 35 pounds over the summer and early fall. And in the summer I became attracted to a bisexual woman in the group.

At first, we claimed we were “doing OK” with the men we married. But now, feelings of all kinds are accelerating between us.

I must say I’ve suspected my husband has had another woman in recent years, but now it doesn’t bother me the same way. I finally understand wanting two people at one time. I tell myself I’m not “cheating” on anybody — because I’m not cheating on my husband with another man. But that’s not even fooling me, anymore. I’m feeling a lot more emotion for my female love interest.

So now what? I don’t want to disrupt my whole family, so should I keep it a secret for everyone’s sake? I must say the female object of my affection isn’t thinking of leaving her husband and family. I could be wrong, but I suspect she’s just having a fun time experimenting.

Outbreak should never have happened

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Outbreak should never have happened

Editorial 4 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

The headline offered a vague sense that something had been accomplished, but it most certainly did not describe anything worth celebrating:

“Manitoba declares measles outbreak over.”

The news item in the Oct. 17 Free Press noted provincial public health officials had confirmed Manitoba’s last laboratory-confirmed case of measles was identified in August, and that the absence of any new cases since had allowed for the aforementioned declaration.

The end of the outbreak — which began in February 2025 and included a significant stretch this year during which Manitoba experienced more measles cases than any other province — is certainly worth noting. But it bears reminding that the real story here is that this province, and others across Canada, experienced a resurgence of this highly communicable but successfully eradicated disease in the first place.

Read
2:00 AM CDT