Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk took steps on Tuesday (June 11) to withdraw his lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that they had veered away from the original goal of developing artificial intelligence (AI) for the betterment of humanity rather than for profit. Musk's attorneys filed a motion in the California state court seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, originally initiated in February, without specifying the reason behind this decision, according to documents filed in San Francisco Superior Court. A hearing, where OpenAI intended to seek dismissal of the lawsuit, was scheduled for Wednesday.

Both OpenAI and Musk's legal representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comments. Musk chose to dismiss the case without prejudice, indicating that he reserves the right to file it again at a later time. The lawsuit represented the culmination of Musk's longstanding opposition to OpenAI, a startup he co-founded, which has garnered substantial attention in the field of generative AI with significant funding from Microsoft.

Last July, Musk established his own AI startup, xAI, which recently secured $6 billion in series B funding, valuing the company at $24 billion. The lawsuit alleged that Altman and OpenAI's co-founder Greg Brockman initially approached Musk to create an open-source, nonprofit organization. However, since its inception in 2015, the startup has shifted its focus towards profitability. According to the lawsuit, OpenAI deviated from its founding principles when it introduced its powerful language model GPT-4 last year.

Musk sought judicial intervention to compel OpenAI to share its research and technology with the public and prevent the startup from leveraging its assets, including GPT-4, for the financial gain of Microsoft and others. OpenAI countered the allegations in a court filing, dismissing them as unfounded and asserting that Musk's lawsuit was driven by his personal interests in AI advancements. In April, Musk filed a response claiming that OpenAI was attempting to present arguments based on disputed facts that were beyond the scope of the lawsuit.