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Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

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Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Openai isn't even close to too big to fail. Bank of America fails the entire banking system collapses and the entire real economy grinds to a halt. If GM fails hundreds of thousands lose their jobs and entire supply chains collapse. If power utilities fail then people start actually dying within hours or days. If OpenAI fails nothing actually important happens.

you cannot erase that much value and say "nothing important happens", market cap is largely a rough proxy for the amount of disruption if something went under

I do not think the situation is remotely comparable to the possibility of the banking system collapsing. Banks and other financial institutions exert leverage far beyond their market caps.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The organization consists of the non-profit OpenAI, Inc. registered in Delaware and its for-profit subsidiary OpenAI Global, LLC. (From Wikipedia)

A non-profit can have a for-profit subsidiary?

Yes.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#183

Most important question: why did he file this lawsuit? What does he intend to gain out of it? Is it a first step towards acquiring/merging OpenAI with one of his companies? He's offered it to buy once before, in 2018 [0]. (He's also tried to buy DeepMind—page 10 the OP filing). [0] https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/24/23654701/openai-elon-musk... ( "Elon Musk reportedly tried and failed to take over OpenAI in 2018" )

The "source" for The Verge article is a sourceless hit piece. There's no actual source claiming he tried to take over OpenAI in 2018 anywhere, besides "people familiar with the matter."

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#184

The defendant list is a bit bewildering. How usual is a corporate structure like this? Which, if any of these, is the nonprofit? OPENAI, INC., a corporation, OPENAI, L.P., a limited partnership, OPENAI, L.L.C., a limited liability company, OPENAI GP, L.L.C., a limited liability company, OPENAI OPCO, LLC, a limited liability company, OPENAI GLOBAL, LLC, a limited liability company, OAI CORPORATION, LLC, a limited liab…

Depends on the sector, size and age of the corporation.

In crypto these kind of complex structures are fairly common ,FTX has some 180 entities. Real estate companies like evergrand have similar complexities.

Companies which do lot of acquisitions will have lot of entities and for accounting may keep them .

Consulting companies including the big ones have similar complex structures each business has their own partners who get a cut of the profits directly and pay only some back to the parent.

Hollywood also does such complex accounting for variety of reasons

Compared to peers in the AI space this is probably unusual, but none of them started as non profit . The only somewhat comparable analogy is perhaps Mozilla (nonprofit tech with huge for profit sub) they are not this complex, they also don’t have the kind of restrictions on founding charter /donor money like openAI does

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#185
post #58

The cynic in me believes this is motivated by not Musk's love for the "mission", but by xAI, his attempt to build OpenAI's competitor. I'm guessing this is just a way to weaken a competitor.

Yeah, it's his second/third try. OpenAI was already his way to "commoditize your complement" so that Tesla's AI division could catch up to DeepMind etc..

Now that this accidentally created something even more powerful (and Tesla's autopilot plans don't seem to be panning out), he's trying to stifle the competition so that xAI can catch up. SPOILER: They won't.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#186

TL;DR for those wondering, as I was, why Musk would have any kind of plausible claim against OpenAI, the main claim is breach of contract on the "Founding Documents" of OpenAI, Inc. (the original nonprofit funded by Musk). > Plaintiff contributed tens of millions of dollars, provided integral advice on research directions, and played a key role in recruiting world-class talent to OpenAI, Inc. in exchange and as consi…

Microsoft's takeover of Mistral makes a lot more sense if this lawsuit has a chance to succeed.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you cannot erase that much value and say "nothing important happens", market cap is largely a rough proxy for the amount of disruption if something went under

"whose" money matters here. It's VC money, mostly. Well-capitalized sophisticated investors, not voters and pension funds. If Microsoft loses 30 billion dollars, it ain't great, but they have more than that sitting in the bank. If Sequoia or Ycombinator goes bankrupt, it's not great for lots of startups, but they can probably find other investors if they have a worthwhile business. If Elon loses a billion dollars, no…

It is VC money pricing in the value of this enterprise to the rest of society.

More over, if capital markets suddenly become ways to just lose tons of money, that hurts capital investment everywhere, which hurts people everywhere.

People like to imagine the economy as super siloed and not interconnected but that is wrong, especially when it comes to capital markets.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The organization consists of the non-profit OpenAI, Inc. registered in Delaware and its for-profit subsidiary OpenAI Global, LLC. (From Wikipedia)

A non-profit can have a for-profit subsidiary?

Mozilla has been doing that for 20 years ?

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#189

Wouldn't you have to prove damages in a lawsuit like this? What damages does Musk personally suffer if OpenAI has in fact broken their contract?

A non-profit took his money and decided to be for profit and compete with the AI efforts of his own companies?

Yeah, OpenAI basically grafted a for-profit entity onto the non-profit to bypass their entire mission. They’re now extremely closed AI, and are valued at $80+ billion.

If I donated millions to them, I’d be furious.

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