Musk loses $150B lawsuit against OpenAI, Altman

Musk had previously helped start the artificial intelligence company

Elon Musk in Oakland, California, federal court for OpenAI lawsuit
(Image credit: Benjamin Fanjoy / Getty Images)

What happened

A federal jury in California on Monday rejected Elon Musk’s high-profile lawsuit against OpenAI and its leaders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, because he had not filed it within the statute of limitations. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers agreed and quickly dismissed the suit. Musk, an estranged OpenAI cofounder, had wanted his former partners forced out of their leadership roles, an unwinding of the company’s conversion to a for-profit endeavor and roughly $150 billion in damages.

Who said what

The quick verdict capped a three-week trial that “fixated the tech world on the grievances and drama” of the world’s most powerful AI moguls, The Wall Street Journal said. Musk accused Altman of “betraying a shared vision” of creating OpenAI as a “nonprofit dedicated to guiding artificial intelligence’s development for the good of humanity,” The Associated Press said.

What next?

The verdict “preserves the status quo” in Silicon Valley’s AI race and “removes one of the final roadblocks” to OpenAI’s expected $1 trillion initial public offering, The New York Times said. But Altman now has to “address the challenges to his reputation from some extremely personal testimony,” Reuters said, including “multiple witnesses describing him as a liar.”

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.