OpenAI launched a for-profit subsidiary a year later in order to raise outside capital, including more than $13 billion so far from its biggest backer, Microsoft. However, the non-profit entity, along with employees and investors, currently owns that for-profit subsidiary.

According to a report in the Financial Times, lawyers for Musk have contacted attorneys-general in Delaware and California to demand that a large stake in OpenAI be sold off in an open auction process.

U.S. antitrust enforcers weighed in on Friday on Elon Musk's lawsuit seeking to block OpenAI's conversion to a public company, pointing out legal doctrines that support his claim that OpenAI and Microsoft engaged in anticompetitive practices.