Elon Musk loses $150 billion suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman

Elon Musk’s $150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman was quickly rejected by a federal jury on Monday, in a major blow to Musk’s credibility and his effort to become a serious competitor in the artificial intelligence race.

The nine-member jury, deliberating for less than two hours in US District Court in Oakland, California, found that Musk had failed to file his lawsuit within a time frame required by law. The presiding judge, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, dismissed Musk’s claims after the jury’s decision.

Musk’s lead lawyer immediately said the tech mogul would appeal the decision, while OpenAI’s lawyers celebrated with back slaps in the hallway outside the courtroom. Neither Musk nor Altman was in the courtroom when the verdict was read.

In a social media post a few hours later, Musk attacked Gonzalez Rogers, calling her an “activist Oakland judge, who simply used the jury as a fig leaf” for a decision that “creates such a terrible precedent.”

The outcome preserves the status quo in Silicon Valley’s race to build artificial intelligence, with OpenAI maintaining its role as one of the tech industry’s most essential companies. And it thwarted Musk’s efforts to implode an organization he helped to create in 2015.

Musk had accused OpenAI; its chief executive, Altman; and its president, Greg Brockman, of “stealing a charity” by attaching a commercial company to OpenAI, which was founded as a nonprofit, and taking billions of dollars in investments from Microsoft. He also accused them of unjustly enriching themselves through the nonprofit.

But Musk’s lawsuit faced a high legal bar in the three-week trial. The jury had to determine whether he sued within several statutes of limitations. Ultimately, the jurors did not get to decide whether OpenAI and its executives were liable for Musk’s specific claims because, they said, he filed his suit too late.

The court fight exposed years of backroom maneuvering and animosity between Musk and Altman, who co-founded OpenAI with Brockman and a group of AI researchers.

Musk asked for $150 billion in damages and wanted Altman to be kicked off OpenAI’s board of directors. He also wanted OpenAI to unwind a move it had made to become a for-profit company before an initial public offering. He added Microsoft to the suit because of its investments in OpenAI.