It’s getting hard out here for a billionaire. According to Forbes Magazine, the number of billionaires across the globe (in U.S. dollars) dropped from 2,668 to 2,640 in 2023, shedding some $500 billion from their previous collective worth of $12.7 trillion.
That doesn’t even include all the billions Elon Musk sunk into Twitter. Maybe that’s why the world’s richest man – or second-richest, depending on whom you ask – is suing Sam Altman and OpenAI, the people behind ChatGPT.
Or maybe Musk has something else in mind besides the money. The ripple effects from this lawsuit could transform the AI industry as we know it; the more we know about Musk’s motivations, the better prepared we’ll be to deal with those crashing waves.
Heck, we might even see prop bets offered by the top offshore sportsbooks, given the magnitude of this situation. But, before getting ahead of ourselves, let’s recap what’s going on.
How Much Money Does Elon Musk Have?
The latest running count at Forbes has the Tesla CEO at $202.1B, down $8.7 billion from last year at this time. That puts Musk second in the world behind Bernard Arnault (and family), the part-owners of the French luxury goods company LVMH, at $228.8B.
Ah, but wait: Bloomberg’s running tally has Musk on top of the charts at $215B, followed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ($201B) and Arnault ($199B). But they still have Musk losing $13.7B over the past year.
Either way you slice it, Musk has seen his fortunes dip considerably since he bought Twitter in October 2022 for $44B, after trying to back out of the deal and getting sued himself.
What Happened With Elon Musk and OpenAI?
When OpenAI started in 2015, Musk was one of the co-founders; he and Altman were the original board members. OpenAI was founded as a non-profit, but Altman and others wanted to change that. Musk tried to stop them, proposing that he take control as CEO, and when they refused, Musk left the company in February 2018.
There’s been nothing but bad vibes between the two camps since Musk lost that power struggle. Musk had pledged to follow through with his plans to sink $1 billion into OpenAI, but those payments stopped after $100 million. So Altman made the company for-profit, and got that $1 billion from Microsoft instead.
Which brings us to today. ChatGPT was a game-changer in the world of generative AI, which is the hottest thing right now since sliced bread – and Musk is on the outside looking in. He launched his own AI company, xAI, in March 2023, but they’re barely a blip on the radar screen after getting such a late start.
Why Is Elon Musk Suing OpenAI?
Ostensibly, Musk is portraying himself as a champion of the people when it comes to AI. He’s stumping for more government regulation in this field, in the interests of public safety.
Musk’s lawsuit, which was filed with the Superior Court of California for the County of San Francisco, claims that OpenAI has abandoned its original intent to develop open-source AI, and is liable for contract breach and other violations.
The key here is ChatGPT-4. Launched in March 2023, this was the first “closed” model of OpenAI’s leading product, and a significant step up from ChatGPT-3.5. Microsoft uses it to power their own Copilot chatbot (formerly known as Bing Chat) and other apps; Musk isn’t happy that Microsoft is making money off what was supposed to be an open-source program.
How Much Money Does Sam Altman Have?
Altman’s fortunes have grown considerably as well. Bloomberg reported this past Sunday that Altman’s net worth had passed the $2-billion mark – except he doesn’t actually hold any shares in OpenAI, which was valued at $86B.
Instead, Altman’s arrow is pointing up because of his investments in companies like Reddit, which is about to hit ludicrous speed with its impending IPO (Altman owns 8.7% of Reddit). He’s also heavily involved in tech startups like Helion Energy and Retro Biosciences.
Reddit’s IPO filing revealed that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will be the third biggest shareholder, controlling an 8.7% stake. pic.twitter.com/aGx6eo3iXe
— Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) March 2, 2024
We should mention that Musk’s suit doesn’t reveal how much money he’s suing for – only that Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman have to pay back the profits they’ve earned thus far. But it was Altman’s decision not to take an equity stake in OpenAI that helped it weather the storm when Musk left. It’s also why Musk’s complaints about OpenAI’s transformation to a for-profit entity ring hollow.
Microsoft may be Musk’s bigger target here. Even though they’re not defendants in this particular suit, their name appears 68 times in the complaint, which calls OpenAI a “de facto subsidiary” of Microsoft. As tempting as it may be to dismiss this case as a nuisance lawsuit, Musk will improve his own AI position substantially if he knocks both OpenAI and Microsoft down a peg or two.
