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Former OpenAI employees show support for Musk lawsuit

The employees claim that the removal of non-profit status would “fundamentally violate” OpenAI’s mission.

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Credit: OpenAI | YouTube

After Elon Musk filed a lawsuit last year against the Sam Altman-run AI firm OpenAI, a group of former employees of the company this week has filed a legal brief supporting the xAI and Tesla leader’s case.

On Friday, a group of 12 former OpenAI employees said in a court filing that the company’s restructuring efforts would “fundamentally violate” the original non-profit mission, as detailed in a report from Reuters. The employees said they were in technical and leadership positions at the company, along with explaining that they believed the not-for-profit model was important for a variety of reasons.

During their time there, oversight of the non-profit was considered a key part of the company’s discussions, according to the group. Although this approach was regularly emphasized during their time at the company, recent pressures from investors to restructure the company into a for-profit could impede on crucial elements of the company’s mission.

The former employees argued that the non-profit structure helped in recruiting efforts, as many of the company’s staffers simply joined because they believed in the original mission. OpenAI, however, responded by claiming that the original mission wouldn’t change even if the structure does.

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“Our Board has been very clear: our nonprofit isn’t going anywhere and our mission will remain the same,” the company said in a statement.

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READ MORE ON ELON MUSK AND OPENAI: Elon Musk’s criticism about ChatGPT’s ‘woke’ nature gets response from OpenAI co-founder

Musk, who helped start OpenAI but left in 2018, has been highly critical of Altman and OpenAI’s efforts to become a for-profit in recent years. He officially filed a lawsuit against the ChatGPT maker last February, before dropping it in June and reviving it in August.

In the suit, Musk alleged that he had been “betrayed by Altman and his accomplices” after investing around $45 million dollars into the company, while OpenAI and investor Microsoft “established an opaque web of for-profit OpenAI affiliates, engaged in rampant self-dealing.”

In November, Musk’s legal team filed a motion for an injunction with U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over the case, claiming that “irreparable harm” would occur if it wasn’t granted. The judge last month denied the injunction request, saying that Musk’s recent offer to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion undermined his claims of harm.

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“Musk has not demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits,” Rogers said in response to the request for an injunction, adding that the original $45 million “is just a lot of money [to invest] on a handshake.”

Despite denying the request, the judge did say that the case could proceed in a California courtroom as soon as this fall, “given the public interest at stake and potential for harm if a conversion contrary to law occurred.”

Musk says xAI has acquired X in $33 billion stock deal

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Zach is a renewable energy reporter who has been covering electric vehicles since 2020. He grew up in Fremont, California, and he currently lives in Colorado. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, KRON4 San Francisco, FOX31 Denver, InsideEVs, CleanTechnica, and many other publications. When he isn't covering Tesla or other EV companies, you can find him writing and performing music, drinking a good cup of coffee, or hanging out with his cats, Banks and Freddie. Reach out at zach@teslarati.com, find him on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

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Elon Musk

Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed

The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.

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Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.

The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.

According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.

Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.

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Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.

The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.

Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.

These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.

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Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.

Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.

The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.

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FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan

Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.

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Credit: @SecWar/X

U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.

Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.

Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.

The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.

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Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.

“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.

Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.

Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.

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Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.

SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.

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Elon Musk shares big Tesla Optimus 3 production update

According to Musk, Tesla is in the final stages of completing Optimus 3, which he described as one of the world’s most advanced humanoid robots.

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Credit: Tesla China

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stated that production of Optimus 3 could begin this summer. Musk shared the update in his interview at the Abundance Summit.

According to Musk, Tesla is in the final stages of completing Optimus 3, which he described as one of the world’s most advanced humanoid robots.

“We’re in the final stages of completion of Optimus 3, which is really going to be by far the most advanced robot in the world. Nothing’s even close. In fact, I haven’t even seen demos of robots that are as good as Optimus 3,” Musk said.

He also set expectations on the pace of Optimus 3’s production ramp, stating that the initial volumes of the humanoid robot will likely be very low. Musk did, however, also state that high production rates for Optimus 3 should be possible in 2027. 

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“I think we’ll start production on Optimus 3 this summer, but very slow at first, like sort of this classic S-curve ramp of manufacturing units versus time. And then, probably reach high volume production around summer next year,” he said.

Interestingly enough, the CEO hinted that Tesla is looking to iterate on the robot quickly, potentially releasing a new Optimus design every year.

“We’ll have Optimus 4 design complete next year. We’ll try to release a new robot design every year,” Musk stated.

Tesla has already outlined broader plans for scaling Optimus production beyond its first manufacturing line. Musk previously stated that Optimus 4 will be built at Gigafactory Texas at significantly higher production volumes.

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Initial production lines for the robot are expected to be located at Tesla’s Fremont Factory, where the company plans to establish a line capable of producing up to 1 million robots per year.

A larger production ramp is expected to occur at Gigafactory Texas, where Musk has previously suggested could eventually support production of up to 10 million robots per year.

“We’re going to launch on the fastest production ramp of any product of any large complex manufactured product ever, starting with building a one-million-unit production line in Fremont. And that’s Line one. And then a ten million unit per year production line here,” Musk said previously.

The comments suggest that while Optimus 3 will likely begin production at Fremont, Tesla’s larger-scale manufacturing push could arrive with Optimus 4 at Gigafactory Texas.

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