OpenAI Reveals New Partnerships Amid Elon Musk For-Profit Lawsuit Win

In November 2022, OpenAI launched its generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) chatbot to the world, introducing us all to the wonderful and brilliant capabilities of GenAI.

Moreover, this landmark event caused a ripple effect across the entire artificial intelligence (AI) sector, revolutionizing age-old processes and operations with new AI-powered tools that brought businesses and organizations improved productivity, reduced costs, and faster turnaround times, among other benefits.

Since OpenAI’s primary reveal, the industry has become flooded with new startups and large businesses dedicated to advancing the technology, while experienced tech conglomerates are pouring in billions of dollars to find their place in the race.

Yet, the leading name in the industry remains OpenAI.

Suffice it to say, OpenAI didn’t just pass any test the industry threw its way, it passed with flying colors.

This habit of winning remains a defining characteristic of the company. It’s one that’s transcribed across recent developments, including gaining favor in the recent lawsuit by former OpenAI investor Elon Musk that challenged OpenAI’s decision to move from a not-for-profit system to a for-profit one.

As such, the court rejected Musk’s request for a preliminary injunction—which would pause OpenAI’s transition until the trial’s final decision is reached—after it found that he hadn’t “demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits” of his claims.

Not just that, the court also dismissed several of his claims from the case entirely.

In a scathing blog post, OpenAI said that they “welcome the court’s March 4, 2025, decision rejecting Elon Musk’s latest attempt to slow down OpenAI for his personal benefit.”

“This lawsuit has always been about what’s good for Elon and his own for-profit AI company. The truth is, he wanted to merge a for-profit OpenAI into Tesla - as his own emails⁠ show,” read an excerpt from the blog post.

The bottom line is Elon Musk wanted OpenAI to turn for-profit and join Tesla, which OpenAI rejected, and Musk chose to launch lawsuits against the GenAI leader when he saw OpenAI’s progress.

At the same time, the court has agreed to fast-track the trial in the autumn. Both companies have also agreed to the expedited trial, while also agreeing to delay a decision on whether it will be decided by a jury or solely by the judge.

OpenAI’s plan is to keep the for-profit initiative going and support that with a successful business in the long run. “It’s also important to note that we’ve had for-profit subsidiaries for years now - any new structure will simply ensure that business can even better support the non-profit.”

The lawsuit follows a meme-worthy exchange between the frontmen of both companies, in which Elon Musk made a $97.4 billion bid to take control of OpenAI, resulting in Sam Altman saying, “No thank you” and making a counteroffer to take over X for $9.74 billion. Musk replied with “Swindler.”


It’s safe to say that OpenAI wasn’t really rattled by the lawsuit (even if they might have been a bit rageful), as the company announced new products, partnerships, and updates.

Recently, OpenAI launched new tools for developers and enterprises to build advanced AI agents, which are meant to streamline core agent logic, orchestration, and interactions. The new tools include Responses API, built-in tools within Responses API (including Web Search, File Search, and Computer Search), Agents SDK, and integrated observability tools⁠.

This was followed by the company introducing NextGenAI—a first-of-its-kind consortium connecting 15 leading research institutions to use AI in research and education.

This move will see OpenAI commit $50 million in funding, tools, research grants, compute funding, and API access to leading institutions. The idea is to support students, educators, and researchers advance the frontiers of knowledge.

The research institutions—who act as founding partners of NextGenAI—include Caltech, the California State University system, Duke University, the University of Georgia, Harvard University, Howard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, the University of Mississippi, The Ohio State University, the University of Oxford, Sciences Po, Texas A&M University, Boston Children’s Hospital, and the Boston Public Library.

These institutions have been using AI to improve industries such as healthcare, education, and more.


Amid this, OpenAI and CoreWeave announced a deal that would see CoreWeave deliver AI infrastructure to OpenAI—expanding its compute capacity for training and delivering—in a deal worth up to $11.9 billion.

This would also see OpenAI become an investor in CoreWeave through $350 million of CoreWeave stock.

“Advanced AI systems require reliable compute, and we're excited to continue scaling with CoreWeave so we can train even more powerful models and offer great services to even more users,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. “CoreWeave is an important addition to OpenAI's infrastructure portfolio, complementing our commercial deals with Microsoft and Oracle, and our joint venture with Softbank on Stargate.”

“Partnering with OpenAI on this net new contract underscores CoreWeave's proven ability to deliver reliable and performant infrastructure services, powering AI Innovations for world-leading AI labs,” said Michael Intrator, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CoreWeave.

In another move that benefits OpenAI, the U.S. Commerce Department bureaus have told its employees that they are banned from using DeepSeek AI models on their government devices.

“To help keep Department of Commerce information systems safe, access to the new Chinese-based AI DeepSeek is broadly prohibited on all GFE (Government Furnished Equipment),” read an excerpt from one of the mass emails. “Do not download, view, access any applications, desktop apps or websites related to DeepSeek.”

What do you think about this and other moves made by the company? Do you think OpenAI is right in making the decision to transition to a “for-profit” company?

Let us know in the comments below!