A federal judge on Tuesday rejected Elon Musk’s attempt to toss out OpenAI’s allegations of a “years long harassment campaign” by the Tesla CEO against the company he co-founded in 2015 and later walked away from before ChatGPT became a worldwide sensation.
In the latest twist in a legal battle that began last year, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers determined that Musk must respond to OpenAI’s accusations that he sought to damage the startup through media comments, social media activity, legal actions, and “a sham attempt to acquire OpenAI’s assets.”
Musk had sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman last year, claiming the organization’s shift to a for-profit model violated its original mission of creating technology for the benefit of humanity rather than for financial gain.
OpenAI fired back in April with a countersuit, accusing Musk of engaging in deceptive business practices under California law. In response, Musk requested that the counterclaims be dismissed or postponed until a later stage in the proceedings.
