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ER Editor: Again, Musk is a brand we believe. See this from Zerohedge —
Elon Musk Revives Lawsuit Against OpenAI And Co-Founders
This seems to be a case against Microsoft as well as OpenAI:
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, X, and SpaceX, has reignited a legal battle against OpenAI and its co-founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, months after initially dropping his lawsuit.
The revived complaint, filed Aug. 5 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses the defendants of multiple counts, including fraud, breach of contract, and violations of federal civil racketeering laws.
Musk had originally sued in February before dropping the suit in June with no explanation given at the time.
Musk’s revived lawsuit includes several allegations against OpenAI, Altman, and Brockman—at the heart of which is a claim that Altman and Brockman “intentionally courted and deceived” Musk into co-founding OpenAI under false pretenses.
Musk asserted in the 81-page suit that he was misled into believing that OpenAI would be a nonprofit organization focused on developing artificial intelligence (AI) technologies “for the benefit of humanity,” operating as a counterbalance to for-profit tech giants.
According to the lawsuit, OpenAI’s co-founders allegedly manipulated Musk by making repeated promises and assurances that the organization would remain open-source and not driven by profit.
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The complaint further accuses Altman and Brockman of engaging in “rampant self-dealing” and transforming OpenAI into a for-profit entity in partnership with Microsoft, thereby abandoning its original mission.
Musk argued that OpenAI’s pivot to a for-profit model has resulted in substantial unjust enrichment for the defendants, which he contends was at the expense of the nonprofit’s mission.
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It’s also a momentous time for Google’s monopoly over search engines and online advertising. See–
A US judge ruled that Google built an illegal monopoly. What happens next?
Google lost its landmark antitrust case against the US Department of Justice this week after a federal judge ruled the tech giant had built an illegal monopoly over the online search and advertising industry. The decision will probably have immense implications for both Google’s internal operations and how people interact with the most popular page on the internet.
Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling specifically found that Google broke antitrust laws by striking exclusive agreements with device makers like Apple and Samsung, in which Google would pay billions of dollars to ensure that its product was the default search engine on their phones and tablets. During the trial, it was revealed that Google paid companies, including Apple, more than $26bn in 2021 alone to remain the default option for search in Safari. Those deals allowed Google to build a monopoly over search and unfairly suppress competition, Mehta found.
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Musk declares ‘war’ on advertiser cartel
X and Rumble are suing a group called GARM for billions in damages
RT
Elon Musk has filed an antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), alleging that it organized an illegal boycott of X (formerly Twitter). Video hosting platform Rumble has joined the complaint.
The suit, filed in Texas on Tuesday, follows last month’s publication of a report by the US House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee, which found evidence that GARM conspired to demonetize and otherwise harm “disfavored platforms.”
“We tried being nice for 2 years and got nothing but empty words. Now, it is war,” Musk said on X, above a post from Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski announcing he would join the case.
“This is not a decision we took lightly, but it is a direct consequence of their actions,” X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in an open letter to all users, calling the behavior by GARM and others “a stain on a great industry” that “cannot be allowed to continue.”
A Message to X Users pic.twitter.com/6bZOYPhWVa
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) August 6, 2024
According to Yaccarino, X has “met and surpassed” the requests made by GARM and other advertiser groups to improve controls and increase the effectiveness of their ads, working in good faith to allay their concerns.
“The unfortunate reality is that despite all our efforts, hundreds of meetings and research to the contrary, many companies chose to dismiss the facts. To those who broke the law, we say enough is enough,” Yaccarino said.
The lawsuit names GARM, the World Federation of Advertisers, and GARM members CVS Health, Mars, Orsted and Unilever as the defendants, with a note that the list could be expanded later pending discovery. X is seeking treble the damages as compensation.
Last month, the New York Post called GARM chief Robert Rakowitz a “fascist creep” and self-styled “mega-censor of everything people can read.” The outlet was censored on multiple platforms in 2020, after publishing an entirely truthful story about Hunter Biden’s laptop that the Democrats denounced as “disinformation.”
According to the House report, GARM is an initiative of the WFA, which represents the world’s biggest ad buyers. Its members control 90% of global marketing spending, to the tune of almost $1 trillion a year. Documents obtained by the lawmakers showed Rakowitz bragging that X was “80% below revenue forecasts” since GARM began targeting it. His defense was that the email was meant as a “self-effacing joke.”
Outside observers have pointed out that GARM received money from the US government and may have been part of the notorious “censorship-industrial complex” exposed by the ‘Twitter Files.’
USAID “explicitly said it was reaching out to advertisers, doing ‘advertiser outreach’ to organize advertiser boycotts to cut financial support to disfavored websites,” noted Mike Benz, a former Trump administration official who now runs the Foundation for Freedom Online.
Source
Featured image source:
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