Musk had helped start OpenAI in 2015, but left the board in 2018.
The court agreed with the federal jury’s conclusion that OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, were not liable, and that the "claims of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment are dismissed as untimely." The jury deliberated for less than two hours. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said she had been prepared to dismiss Musk’s case "on the spot," and that "there’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding."
Musk was seeking for the court to force OpenAI and Microsoft, who was also named in the case and the claim against the company was dismissed, to give up as much as $134 billion in "ill-gotten gains," remove Altman and President Greg Brockman from their roles, and roll back the company’s 2025 restructuring plan that had enabled the growth of its for-profit division. Musk was seeking for funds to be returned to "the OpenAI charity," rather than himself.
Musk had claimed that OpenAI executives "stole a charity," and Altman and Brockman had abandoned the company’s founding charitable mission in favor of personal profit. He testified that he gave around $38 million to OpenAI on the understanding that the company would develop AI "for the benefit of humanity," not for personal profit.
OpenAI’s layers had argued that Musk’s donation had not been restricted, and that restructuring the business was the only way to compete against Google’s DeepMind. The attorneys also showed that Musk had once floated a for-profit structure for the company with the condition that he retain control, and also pushed for OpenAI at one point to be folded into Tesla.
The lawyers for the company also painted the lawsuit as Musk’s attempt to take down a rival AI company after he failed to gain control of it. Musk founded xAI in 2023, which is now a part of SpaceX. The ruling comes as both Musk and Altman are pushing their companies toward public offerings, per CNBC. OpenAI raised $122 billion at a valuation ofover $850 billion in March, while Musk is expected to start meeting with investors soon ahead of an IPO for SpaceX, which is valued at $1.25 trillion. SpaceX filed for an IPO in April.
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