Elon Musk filed a lawsuit on Monday against OpenAI and two of its founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, renewing claims that the ChatGPT-maker betrayed its founding aims of benefiting the public good rather than pursuing profits. The lawsuit, filed in a Northern California federal court, called Musk’s case a �textbook tale of altruism versus greed.� Altman and others named in the suit �intentionally courted and deceived Musk, preying on Musk�s humanitarian concern about the existential dangers posed by artificial intelligence,� according to the complaint.

Musk was an early investor in OpenAI when it was founded in 2015 and co-chaired its board alongside Altman. In the lawsuit, he said he invested �tens of millions� of dollars and recruited top AI research scientists for OpenAI. Musk resigned from the board in early 2018 in a move that OpenAI said � at the time � would prevent conflicts of interest as he was recruiting AI talent to build self-driving technology at the electric car maker.

The Tesla CEO dropped his previous lawsuit against OpenAI without explanation in June. That lawsuit alleged that when Musk bankrolled OpenAI�s creation, he secured an agreement with Altman and Brockman to keep the AI company as a nonprofit that would develop technology for the benefit of the public and keep its code open.

�As we said about Elon�s initial legal filing, which was subsequently withdrawn, Elon�s prior emails continue to speak for themselves,� a spokesperson for OpenAI said in an emailed statement. In March, OpenAI released emails from Musk showing his earlier support for making it a for-profit company.

Musk claims in the new suit that he and OpenAI’s namesake objective were �betrayed by Altman and his accomplices.�

�The perfidy and deceit are of Shakespearean proportions,� the complaint said.

(AP)