- Elon Musk’s legal team is claiming the billionaire “does not use a computer” to push back against OpenAI’s accusation that Musk failed to comply with the discovery process in his lawsuit against the company. The filing comes as part of Musk’s broader legal battle accusing OpenAI and Sam Altman of straying from their nonprofit roots.
Lawyers for Elon Musk have claimed that the billionaire “does not use a computer” after OpenAI accused Musk of not complying with the discovery process in his lawsuit against the company.
In a letter addressed to the judge overseeing the OpenAI case in Oakland, Musk’s attorney, Jaymie Parkkinen, accused OpenAI of making false statements when the company asserted that Musk’s legal team had “no plans to collect any documents” from either Musk himself or xAI, his competing artificial intelligence firm.
In the letter, Parkkinen disputed this claim, saying the lawyers for Musk had informed OpenAI that searches were being conducted on Musk’s mobile phone and that the billionaire didn’t use a computer.
“Plaintiffs sent Defendants a letter informing them that Plaintiffs were conducting searches of Mr. Musk’s mobile phone, having searched his emails, and that Mr. Musk does not use a computer,” the filing reads.
There are several pieces of public evidence to suggest that Musk does indeed have a computer.
For example, just last month the billionaire said on X: “Still using my ancient PC laptop with the @DOGE sticker made long ago by a fan.” In a separate post in December 2024, Musk posted an image of a computer, stating: “This is a pic of my laptop.” In another February post, Musk announced: “Just bought a new PC laptop.”
Several X employees who spoke to Wired on condition of anonymity also said that while Musk typically prefers working from his phone, they had seen him on occasion using a laptop.
Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune, made outside normal working hours.
Musk vs. OpenAI
The filing is part of an ongoing case by Musk against Sam Altman and OpenAI.
Musk, an OpenAI cofounder, has accused his former colleagues of betraying the company’s founding mission to build artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. In a lawsuit filed in San Francisco, Musk claimed OpenAI has effectively become a “closed-source” arm of Microsoft, prioritizing profit over public good.
Musk’s claims against OpenAI include breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and unfair business practices. His demands include asking the company to revert back to open-source and an injunction to prevent OpenAI execs from profiting from AGI.
The filing alleges that OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-4, may qualify as artificial general intelligence—and that its design remains secret because of commercial interests.
“The internal details of GPT-4 are known only to OpenAI and, on information and belief, to Microsoft. GPT-4 is hence the opposite of ‘open AI,’” Musk said in the suit. “And it is closed for propriety commercial reasons: Microsoft stands to make a fortune selling GPT-4 to the public, which would not be possible if OpenAI—as it is required to do—makes the technology freely available to the public.”
Musk, who contributed over $44 million to the nonprofit, argues his support has been twisted to serve a for-profit venture now valued at $80 billion.
“Imagine donating to a nonprofit whose asserted mission is to protect the Amazon rainforest, but then the nonprofit creates a for-profit Amazonian logging company that uses the fruits of the donations to clear the rainforest,” Musk said in the lawsuit. “That is the story of OpenAI, Inc.”
