A 7-year-old dispute between tech leaders Elon Musk and Sam Altman over who should run OpenAI and prevent an artificial intelligence "dictatorship" is now heading to a federal judge as Musk seeks to halt the ChatGPT maker's ongoing shift into a for-profit company.

Elon Musk asked a federal court to block OpenAI from pursuing an “illegal” conversion to a for-profit business, saying that a pause on the ChatGPT maker’s accelerating dominance is urgently needed to protect his own artificial intelligence startup as well as the public.

The artificial intelligence start-up argues that Mr. Musk is trying to hamstring its business as he builds a rival company.