• Elon Musk has filed a new lawsuit against the founders of OpenAI.
• Similar to his lawsuit earlier this year, which was eventually withdrawn in June, Musk alleges that the company has faltered from its founding principles.
• In particular, the non-profiit aspirations of the company, are a sticking point for Musk.

Like peas and carrots, the combination of Elon Musk and lawsuits appears to be one that is hard to deny. In his latest litigious escapade, Musk has once again set his eyes on OpenAI, and in particular two of its founders – Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.

The lawsuit, which has been filed in federal court in Northern California per The Verge, alleges that Altman and Brockman knowingly duped Elon Musk. In particular it says that the pair, “assiduously manipulated Musk into co-founding their spurious non-profit venture.”

If that sounds familiar, it should, as this is almost verbatim what Musk alleged in a previous lawsuit against OpenAI and its founders. Said lawsuit was withdrawn in June, but as the Northern Hemisphere heads in Autumn, it has seemingly renewed the X owner’s legal vigour.

“Elon Musk’s case against Sam Altman and OpenAI is a textbook tale of altruism versus greed. Altman, in concert with other Defendants, intentionally courted and deceived Musk, preying on Musk’s humanitarian concern about the existential dangers posed by artificial intelligence,” the lawsuit explains.

“The idea Altman sold Musk was that a non-profit, funded and backed by Musk, would attract world-class scientists, conduct leading AI research and development, and, as a meaningful counterweight to Google’s DeepMind in the race for Artificial General Intelligence (‘AGI’), decentralise its technology by making it open source. Altman assured Musk that the non-profit structure guaranteed neutrality and a focus on safety and openness for the benefit of humanity, not shareholder value,” it continues.

This latest lawsuit seemingly has more teeth than the previous one, as Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff told The New York Times (paywall), that his client is arguing that OpenAI broke federal racketeering laws by conspiring to defraud Elon Musk.

He added that OpenAI’s contract with Microsoft would make access to the former technology null en void once AGI were achieved.

It remains to be seen whether this latest lawsuit holds more water than the previous one, but with the X platform also working on an AI offering named Grok, it’s clear Musk plans to be a key figure in the AI race, regardless of whether that is as an enabler or restrictor.