Elon Musk has unexpectedly asked a California court to withdraw his legal case against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, which accused them of abandoning the company’s founding mission of developing artificial intelligence (AI) for humanity’s benefit.

The filing, submitted by the multi-billionaire’s lawyers, requested the months-old case be dropped without providing any reason for the move. This request came just a day before the court was set to hear OpenAI’s bid to have the case dismissed.

The latest filing asked for the case’s dismissal “without prejudice,” meaning Mr. Musk could still reactivate it at a later stage.

The Tesla boss originally filed the lawsuit against OpenAI in late February, arguing the company he had co-founded in 2015 had strayed from its altruistic goals to focus on making money.

OpenAI countered that Mr. Musk had previously supported the idea of a for-profit structure and even suggested a merger with his electric car company, Tesla. The feud escalated earlier this week after Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI to enhance its Siri voice assistant and operating systems using OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.

Following the announcement, Mr. Musk posted several critical messages on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, condemning the partnership. In one post, he remarked, “Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river.”

Despite Mr. Musk’s criticism, investors responded positively to the news, and Apple’s stock market value soared to a record high above $3 trillion.

In July 2023, Mr. Musk launched his own AI company, xAI, with the goal of “understanding reality.” By November, xAI introduced Grok, a chatbot designed to rival ChatGPT, featuring a touch of humor.