By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A California court has struck out Elon Musk’s high-profile lawsuit against OpenAI and its boss Sam Altman, ruling that Musk had waited too long to file his legal action, leaving all of his claims essentially expired.
Musk had accused Altman of breaching a non-profit contract by shifting the ChatGPT-maker to a for-profit company after Musk donated $38m (£28.5m) early in the early history of OpenAI.
Musk claimed Altman had deceived him by accepting his money and then reneging on OpenAI’s original non-profit mission to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technology for the benefit of humanity.
Judges spent about two hours on Monday deliberating on the case, but they had spent three weeks viewing internal correspondence and hearing testimony from Musk, Altman, and other tech industry executives, including Microsoft’s chief executive Satya Nadella.
Musk had accused Microsoft of aiding and abetting OpenAI in its allegedly improper transition to a more for-profit company.
Musk’s other claims against Microsoft were dismissed as a matter of law given the court’s findings on the two claims against OpenAI.
The court’s unanimous decision adds to a string of recent losses and settlements for Musk in court.
Carl Tobias, a law professor and chair at the University of Richmond School of Law, said that the jurors made a “very fact-based decision” about the case.
“This case seemed kind of weird and crazy, but this is why we trust juries, because they bring the common sense of the community to resolve factual disputes,” Tobias said.
On the first day of the trial, Musk took the stand wearing a dark suit and tie and was asked by one of his lawyers what the legal action was about.
“It’s actually very simple,” he said. “It’s not OK to steal a charity… If it’s okay to loot a charity, the entire foundation of charitable giving will be destroyed.”
Altman told the court during his own testimony that Musk not only backed the idea of OpenAI becoming a for-profit business, he had vied for control of it for the long-run.
“A particularly hair-raising moment was when my co-founders asked, ‘If you have control, what happens when you die?'” Altman recalled in court. “He said something like, ‘maybe it should pass to my children.'”
The duo started OpenAI in 2015, but Musk left in 2018 after his co-founders denied him control.
The lawsuit is seen as a culmination of the animosity between Musk and Altman built up since then.
On Monday, Sam Singer, a spokesman for OpenAI, said from outside the Oakland courthouse that the verdict was a “tremendous victory”.
“This was nothing but an effort by Mr Musk to slow down a competitor,” he said, adding that it was a victory “for the justice system as well”.
After the verdict, however, Steven Molo, the lead attorney for Musk in the case, told the judge that he wanted to “preserve my client’s right to appeal,” leaving open the possibility that Musk will attempt to undo the jury’s finding.
