Musk loses lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman

A US jury on Monday 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, the jury in Oakland, California federal court said Musk had brought his case too ​late. The jury deliberated ‌less than two hours.The nine-person jury found that Musk waited too long to file his lawsuit and missed the deadline for the statute of limitations.The jury served in an advisory role, but Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the verdict Monday as the court's own and dismissed Musk's claims. The jury deliberated only two hours before returning its verdict
Musk, the world's richest man, was a co-founder of OpenAI, the company that launched in 2015 and went on to create ChatGPT. After investing $38 million in its first years, Musk accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his top deputy of shifting into a moneymaking mode behind his back. 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. Many people have begun using AI for as a digital aid for education, facial recognition, financial advice, journalism, legal research, medical diagnoses and producing harmful deep-fakes.