Not Listening to Lawyers, Listening to ChatGPT: Krafton CEO Used AI to Plan Dodging $250 Million Contract, Suffered Humiliating Defeat in Delaware Court

CryptoWorld News reports that, according to 1M AI News monitoring, South Korean game publisher Krafton’s CEO Changhan Kim used ChatGPT to plan a scheme to evade a $250 million contract payment, ignoring warnings from his legal team and proceeding regardless. He ultimately suffered a crushing defeat in a Delaware court. The judge on Monday ordered the reinstatement of the dismissed developer and fully revealed in the ruling how the CEO relied on an AI chatbot to develop company strategy.

In 2021, Krafton acquired the underwater survival game Subnautica’s developer, Unknown Worlds Entertainment, for $500 million, promising an additional $250 million if the sequel, Subnautica 2, met sales targets. Internal sales forecasts indicated this payment was likely to be triggered.

Kim’s head of corporate development, Maria Park, explicitly warned on Slack that attempting to avoid the payment posed “litigation and reputational risks,” and that even dismissing the founder “would likely still require payment.” However, Kim turned to ChatGPT for a solution. ChatGPT responded that the payment “would be difficult to cancel,” but Kim still asked for alternative strategies.

ChatGPT suggested forming an internal special task force. Based on this, Kim established a team codenamed “Project X” and had ChatGPT draft a “scenario response strategy” that included:

1. Preemptively guiding public opinion to prevent the event from being characterized as “big company bullying an independent studio”
2. Securing control over Steam/console release rights and code pipelines
3. Preparing backup recruitment plans for key personnel loss
4. Employing a dual strategy of hard (legal + financial) and soft (support + incentives) approaches to push moderates toward compromise.

Following ChatGPT’s advice, Kim issued a statement on Subnautica’s official website to garner player support, but the effect was counterproductive, causing players to worry about the game’s future. Subsequently, Kim dismissed the original creators of the game, leading to litigation.

The judge’s ruling stated: “Fearing they had signed a ‘puppet’ contract, Krafton’s CEO turned to an AI chatbot to plan a ‘takeover’ strategy for the company.”