Dispute escalates again! Musk demands US judge to auction off OpenAI shares.

According to reports, Elon Musk and his lawyers have requested judges in California and Delaware to auction off OpenAI's shares, potentially allowing external investors to control OpenAI even if it successfully transitions. Sources say that OpenAI has no plans to hold an auction, and Musk and his team "want to create more chaos". The feud between Musk and OpenAI has been ongoing for some time. In November 2024, Musk and his lawyers filed an injunction attempting to prevent OpenAI from becoming a for-profit organization. The injunction also aimed to prevent OpenAI from engaging in what Musk's lawyers called anti-competitive behavior. Founded in 2015, OpenAI's founders include Musk, current CEO Sam Altman, and several other founders. Last month, OpenAI published an article on its website stating that in the summer of 2017, Musk "agreed that transitioning to for-profit was the next step in fulfilling OpenAI's mission". In the fall of 2017, Musk "requested to have the majority ownership" of the company and what OpenAI referred to as "absolute control", as well as becoming the CEO of the for-profit company. In September of the same year, Musk created a public benefit corporation named Open Artificial Intelligence Technologies. After the establishment of the company, OpenAI stated that it rejected Musk's terms, "as allowing him unilateral control over OpenAI and its technology would go against the mission". A few months later, in March 2018, Musk resigned as co-chair of OpenAI. It is understood that OpenAI is the creator of the popular chatbot Siasun Robot & Automation ChatGPT, which has recently raised billions of dollars in funding, including a $66 billion financing round, valuing the company at $157 billion. Microsoft has invested approximately $14 billion in OpenAI. As the head of xAI, a competitor to OpenAI, Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming that it "prioritizes profit over benefiting humanity". xAI recently secured funding, with a valuation of $50 billion, and the company also released an independent app for Grok chatbot Siasun Robot & Automation on iOS. Musk dropped the initial lawsuit but filed a new one in August of last year, citing the initial lawsuit as "ineffective". Musk's lawsuit has recently also named Microsoft, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and current Microsoft executive Dey Dupont, who formerly worked at OpenAI, as co-defendants.