A US jury has 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.
In a unanimous verdict on Monday, the jury in Oakland, California, federal court said Musk had brought his case too late. The jury deliberated less than two hours.
The trial had widely been seen as a critical moment for the future of OpenAI and artificial intelligence generally, both in how it should be used and who should benefit from it.
Following the verdict, Musk’s lawyer said he reserved the right to appeal, but the judge suggested he may have an uphill battle because whether the statute of limitations ran out before Musk sued was a factual issue.
“There’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding, which is why I was prepared to dismiss on the spot,” US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said.
In his 2024 lawsuit, Musk accused OpenAI, its Chief Executive Sam Altman and its President Greg Brockman of manipulating him into giving $38 million, then going behind his back by attaching a for-profit business to its original nonprofit and accepting tens of billions of dollars from Microsoft and other investors.
Musk called the OpenAI defendants’ conduct “stealing a charity.”
OpenAI was founded by Altman, Musk and several others in 2015. Musk left its board in 2018, and OpenAI set up a for-profit business the next year.
OpenAI countered that it was Musk who saw dollar signs, and that he waited too long to claim OpenAI breached its founding agreement to build safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity.
“Mr. Musk may have the Midas touch in some areas, but not in AI,” William Savitt, a lawyer for OpenAI, said in his closing argument.
The verdict followed 11 days of testimony and arguments where Musk’s and Altman’s credibility came under repeated attack.
Lawyers for OpenAI embraced each other after the verdict was announced.
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