Elon Musk's OpenAI lawsuit is a case of sour grapes, says Reid Hoffman

He said, “I’m not very charitable about those lawsuits. I’d like to be, because Elon is one of the entrepreneurial heroes of our time and generation, but I think the most charitable thing to say is: sour grapes.”

The LinkedIn co-founder also claimed in the podcast, which aired Friday, that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman offered Musk the chance to participate in and lead the startup’s investment round, but that he chose not to.

Hoffman was a founding member of OpenAI and joined its board of directors in 2018. In March 2023, he announced that he would voluntarily step down as OpenAI’s director to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, as he was a co-founder of Inflection AI.

Hoffman said he invested $10 million of his own money into OpenAI through his foundation, but like Musk, he did not receive any equity in the company.

He added that he could “understand the emotion” if Musk felt screwed, but that the billionaire’s $44 million investment came at a time when OpenAI was a nonprofit.

“It’s not like Elon has a shortage of money,” Hoffman said.

Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and co-founders Altman and Greg Brockman in March, accusing the company of compromising its nonprofit mission by partnering with Microsoft.

OpenAI responded by calling Musk’s claims “incoherent” and “contradictory.” The company later published emails between OpenAI executives and Musk on a blog in an attempt to debunk them.

Musk subsequently dropped his lawsuit in June — just a day before a judge was set to consider the future of the case in a hearing — but filed a new lawsuit against OpenAI, Altman and Brockman in August. Lawyers for Musk argued in the document that the co-founders “manipulated” him by preying on his concerns about AI safety.

Musk left OpenAI in 2018 and founded xAI last year.

Representatives for Hoffman and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, which were made outside normal business hours.