Elon Musk at a federal courthouse in Oakland on April 29. Today's verdict followed 11 days of testimony and arguments.Manuel Orbegozo/Reuters
A federal court on Monday dismissed claims filed against OpenAI and its top executives by Elon Musk, who accused them of betraying a shared vision for it to remain a non-profit dedicated to guiding artificial intelligence’s development for the good of humanity.
The nine-person jury found Mr. Musk waited too long to file his lawsuit and missed a statutory deadline. After a three-week trial, the jury deliberated less than two hours.
Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, was a co-founder of OpenAI, which launched in 2015 and went on to create ChatGPT. After investing US$38-million in its first years, Mr. Musk accused OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman and his top deputy of shifting into a money-making mode behind his back.
The jury served in an advisory role, but Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the verdict Monday as the court’s own and dismissed Mr. Musk’s claims.
Mr. Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, said they will file an appeal and Mr. Musk’s feud with OpenAI was far from resolved. He compared the loss to moments in U.S. history like the Siege of Charleston and the Battle of Bunker Hill, which were “major losses for Americans, but who won the war?”
“And this one is not over, and to sum it up in one word: appeal,” he said.
Musk, OpenAI lawyers make closing arguments in landmark trial
The trial in Oakland, Calif., shed light on the bitter falling-out between the two Silicon Valley titans and the beginnings of OpenAI, now a company valued at US$852-billion and moving toward potentially one of the largest initial public offerings in history.
Mr. Altman and OpenAI claimed there was never a promise to keep OpenAI a non-profit forever. In fact, they argued, Mr. Musk knew this and filed his lawsuit because he couldn’t have unilateral control over the fast-growing AI developer.
OpenAI argued the lawsuit aimed to undercut the company’s rapid growth and bolster Mr. Musk’s xAI, which he launched in 2023 as a competitor.
Outside court Monday, OpenAI lawyer William Savitt told reporters that jurors determined the lawsuit was an “after-the-fact contrivance” that amounted to Mr. Musk trying to sabotage a competitor and ”to overcome a long history of very bad predictions about what OpenAI has been and will become.”
Microsoft Corp., an OpenAI investor and a co-defendant in Mr. Musk’s lawsuit, said it welcomed the decision and remains “committed to our work with OpenAI to advance and scale AI for people and organizations around the world.”
A jury on Monday ruled against Elon Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, finding the artificial intelligence company not liable to the world's richest person for having allegedly strayed from its original mission to benefit humanity.
Reuters
Mr. Musk was seeking damages to be paid to the altruistic efforts of OpenAI’s charitable arm as well as Mr. Altman’s ouster from OpenAI’s board. Mr. Musk’s decision to stop funding the company contributed to the rift between the former allies. Mr. Musk says he was responding to deceptive conduct that OpenAI’s board picked up on when it fired Mr. Altman as CEO in 2023 before he got his job back days later.
The trial saw testimony from Mr. Musk, Mr. Altman and his top lieutenant Greg Brockman, along with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and a slew of others in the tech titans’ orbit.
Mr. Musk told jurors on his first of three days on the stand that, fundamentally, “I think they’re going to try to make this lawsuit ... very complicated, but it’s actually very simple,” Mr. Musk said. “Which is that it’s not OK to steal a charity.”
Mr. Musk’s lawsuit claimed that, in addition to “breach of charitable trust,” Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman unjustly enriched themselves from the windfall as the ChatGPT maker soared in valuation. Mr. Brockman revealed during the trial that his stake in OpenAI is worth about US$30-billion.
Mr. Altman and Mr. Musk both vied to be OpenAI’s CEO in its early years. In his testimony, Mr. Altman said he had concerns about Mr. Musk’s attempts to gain more control over OpenAI, which was aiming to safely build a better-than-human form of AI called artificial general intelligence.
“Part of the reason we started OpenAI is we didn’t think AGI could be under the control of any one person, no matter how good their intents are,” Mr. Altman said.
Near the end of his testimony, Mr. Altman said that before things turned sour, he had thought very highly of Mr. Musk.
“I felt like he had abandoned us, not come through on his promises, put the company in a very difficult place, jeopardized the mission, didn’t really care about the things I thought he cared about,” Mr. Altman said. “It’s been an extremely painful thing for me ... to have someone that I respected so much not acknowledge that and continue to publicly attack us.”
Mr. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.