On Thursday evening (November 14), Musk filed an amended lawsuit in a San Francisco court, bringing new antitrust allegations against OpenAI and naming Microsoft and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman as co-defendants. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI and Microsoft colluded to eliminate competition and dominate the development of artificial intelligence.
Musk also accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman of engaging in “rampant self-dealing” between OpenAI and other companies in which Altman is involved, effectively merging OpenAI with Microsoft.
The ongoing lawsuit contains new evidence detailing how OpenAI, around 2017, considered acquiring Cerebras, just a year after the startup's founding and a few years into OpenAI's operations.
In an email to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Musk, OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever suggested acquiring Cerebras through Musk's electric vehicle company, Tesla. At the time, Musk had financial ties to OpenAI and wielded some influence over its direction. OpenAI, known for developing ChatGPT, was co-founded with Musk's support.
The merger never materialized, though the documents do not explain why. OpenAI ultimately shelved its chip ambitions for years.
Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Cerebras focuses on developing custom hardware to run and train AI models, claiming its chips are faster and more efficient than NVIDIA's flagship products for AI workloads.
Cerebras has reportedly raised $715 million in venture capital and is aiming to double its $4 billion valuation through an IPO. However, it faces significant challenges, including concerns from U.S. lawmakers over its client, UAE-based G42, and a controversial past involving CEO Andrew Feldman, who admitted to accounting violations during his tenure as a vice president at Riverstone Networks, a publicly traded company.