OpenAI says Elon Musk didn’t just leave the company; he tried to take it over, and the AI research giant says it has the emails to prove it.
In a newly filed countersuit, OpenAI accuses Tesla CEO Elon Musk of attempting a hostile takeover of the company he helped found, using what it called “bad-faith tactics” and a “self-serving narrative.”
OpenAI seeks to block Elon Musk’s alleged campaign of harassment and disruption, centered on a sham $97 billion takeover bid, while seeking compensatory and punitive damages to be determined at a possible trial, along with injunctive relief to prevent further interference.
“These antics are just history on repeat—Elon being all about Elon,” OpenAI’s official newsroom wrote in a scalding post on X as it shared internal emails showing Musk pushing to convert OpenAI into a for-profit entity.
While Musk has consistently argued that OpenAI strayed from its original nonprofit mission, OpenAI alleges Musk himself was the first to push for a structural overhaul, so long as he was in charge.
As shown in the emails, in November 2015, Musk began questioning OpenAI’s structure in an email to CEO Sam Altman, writing that a “standard C corp with a parallel nonprofit” would likely align incentives better.
Decrypt has yet to independently verify the emails put forth by OpenAI. Representatives for Musk's companies, Tesla and SpaceX, did not immediately respond to Decrypt's request for comment.
In June and July 2017, as OpenAI’s need for compute scaled with its Dota 2 experiments, Musk allegedly encouraged expansion, writing, “Let’s figure out the least expensive way to ensure compute power is not a constraint.”
And that summer, discussions shifted. On July 13, 2017, Musk allegedly agreed a for-profit model might be necessary. Days later, he warned that China’s AI ambitions were another reason to “change course.”
OpenAI claims that in September 2017, Musk made his move, pushing for “initial control” over OpenAI’s board in exchange for capital and demanding to be CEO.
Emails from that month show him proposing a structure where he’d appoint four out of seven board seats. “I would unequivocally have initial control of the company,” he allegedly wrote.