[zoogeny]

I don't know how comparable it would be, but I imagine if I donated $44 million to a university under the agreement that they would use the money in a particular way (e.g. to build a specific building or to fund a specific program) and then the university used the money in some other way, I feel I ought to have some standing to sue them.

Of course, this all depends on the investment details specified in a contract and the relevant law, both of which I am not familiar with.

[mikeyouse]

Yeah - Had you donated the funds as "restricted funding" in the nonprofit parlance, they would have a legal requirement to use the funds as you had designated. It seems that Musk contributed general non-restricted funding so the nonprofit can more or less do what they want with the money.. Not saying there's no case here, but if he really wanted them to do something specific, there's a path for that to happen and that he didn't take that path is definitely going to hurt his case.

[SoftTalker]

A non-profit is obligated to use any donated funds for its stated non-profit purpose. Restricted donations are further limited.

[mikeyouse]

Right - but OpenAI's nonprofit purpose is extremely broad;

"OpenAIs mission is to build general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) that safely benefits humanity, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. OpenAI believes that artificial intelligence technology has the potential to have a profound, positive impact on the world, so our goal is to develop and responsibly deploy safe AI technology, ensuring that its benefits are as widely and evenly distributed as possible."

So as long as the Musk bucks were used for that purpose, the org is within their rights to do any manner of other activities including setting up competing orgs and for-profit entities with non-Musk bucks - or even with Musk bucks if they make the case that it serves the purpose.

The IRS has almost no teeth here, these types of "you didn't use my unrestricted money for the right purpose" complaints are very, very rarely enforced.

[zoogeny]

> Musk contributed general non-restricted funding so the nonprofit can more or less do what they want with the money.

Seems like "more or less" is doing a lot of work in this statement.

I suppose this is what the legal system is for, to settle the dispute within the "more or less" grey area. I would wager this will get settled out of court. But if it makes it all the way to judgement then I will be interested to see if the court sees OpenAI's recent behavior as "more" or "less" in line with the agreements around its founding and initial funding.

[mikeyouse]

Yeah, much of it will turn on what was explicitly agreed to and what the funds were actually used for -- but people have the wrong idea about nonprofits in general, OpenAI's mission is incredibly broad so they can do a whole universe of things to advance that mission including investing or founding for-profit companies.

"Nonprofit" is just a tax and wind-down designation (the assets in the nonprofit can't be distributed to insiders) - otherwise they operate as run-of-the-mill companies with slightly more disclosure required. Notice the OpenAI nonprofit is just "OpenAI, Inc." -- Musk's suit is akin to an investor writing a check to a robot startup and then suing them if they pivot to AI -- maybe not what he intended but there are other levers to exercise control, except it's even further afield and more like a grant to a startup since nobody can "own" a nonprofit.

[foofie]

> (...) but if he really wanted them to do something specific (...)

Musk pledged donating orders of magnitude more to OpenAI when he wanted to take over the organization, and reneged on his pledge when the takeover failed and instead went the "fox and the grapes" path of accusing OpenAI of being a failure.

It took Microsoft injecting billions in funding to get OpenAI to be where it is today.

It's pathetic how Elon Musk is now complaining his insignificant contribution granted him a stake in the organization's output when we look back at reality and see it contrast with his claims.

[scottyah]

Elon was the largest donator in 2015, Microsoft didn't inject any money until the team was set up and their tech proven in 2019 with GPT-2. Four years is huge in tech, and especially in the AI area.

It seems you are really trying to bend reality to leave a hate comment on Elon. Your beef might be justified, but it's hard to call his contribution insignificant.

[doktrin]

This is a tangential point, but at least in American English the expression “sour grapes” is a shorthand for the fable you’re referring to.

[sroussey]

Moreover, they probably did spend the $44m on what he wanted. That was a long time ago...

[MiscIdeaMaker99]

Was it a donation? Or was it an investment?