The jury wasted no time, taking 90 minutes to find that Elon Musk’s claims against OpenAI for breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment were filed too late under the respective statute of limitations.
That means the jury found that Musk knew or should have known with reasonable diligence that he could filed his lawsuit sooner than he did in February 2024.
The evidence showed Musk himself was discussing with OpenAI to establish a for-profit arm in 2017 and 2018. Musk even negotiated for a majority equity interest so he could have “unilateral control” over the for-profit company. (That became a major sticking point with Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever, according to their testimony. No one person should be able to control AGI.)
Musk left OpenAI by February 2018. He started his own AI for-profit company.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who had the ultimate fact finding authority, agreed with the advisory jury’s finding: “I think that there’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding.”
This high-profile case ends not with a bang, but with a whimper.
This is a fitting end to the lawsuit.
It seemed to be dredging up the past while AI and all the parties involved have moved on. AI was so crude back in 2016-18, Dr. Ilya Sutsekever, a star witness, likened it to a “ant.” And today it’s a “cat.”
Musk himself was not even in court for the closing arguments. Instead, he was in China with President Trump for a show of U.S. business leaders.
And, while the closing arguments were fun to listen to, only 800 people were tuned in to the court’s YouTube channel for the arguments. So, despite the headline-grabbing nature of this lawsuit, it turned out be anti-climactic, to say the least.
Musk’s attorney says they will appeal. But the chance of a reversal is slim to none.