A blow to Elon Musk: lost the lawsuit against Sam Altman

The procedure opened at the end of last month, and in the framework of it Musk tried to lead to a particularly dramatic move: he sought to oblige OpenAI and Microsoft – which has invested billions in the company since 2019 – to give up profits of up to 134 billion dollars, remove the company’s management and even cancel the reorganization it did last year, which allowed for the expansion of its commercial activities.

According to Musk, the management of OpenAI, led by Altman and president Greg Brockman, abandoned the commitment to develop artificial intelligence “for the benefit of humanity”, in favor of private business interests.

During the testimony in recent weeks, jurors heard from Altman, Bruckman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Musk himself. Today, after less than two hours of deliberations, they decided that OpenAI and Altman are not responsible for breach of any obligation, and federal judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers adopted the decision.

The image was reversed

Musk, who was one of the founders of OpenAI in 2015 and left the company’s board of directors three years later, testified that he contributed over the years about 38 million dollars with the understanding that the organization would work for the benefit of the public and not become a private profit machine for a handful of managers and investors. According to him, the company’s executives “stole a charity” when they neglected the basic principles on which it was founded.

On the other hand, OpenAI’s lawyers argued that Musk’s contributions were not subject to any limitations, and that the transition to a business model was inevitable given the huge development costs in the race against players like Google.

Furthermore, they tried to change the picture and presented correspondence that shows that Musk himself previously promoted ideas to make the company commercial, as long as it remained under his control, and even examined the possibility of integrating it into Tesla. In addition, it is claimed that the lawsuit was born only after Musk founded xAI, his competing artificial intelligence company.

The ruling comes at a sensitive time for both parties, while the market is closely monitoring the companies’ IPO plans. OpenAI last March raised $122 billion at a valuation of more than $850 billion, while SpaceX, which merged with xAI this year, was valued at $1.25 trillion ahead of a possible IPO. According to reports in the US, the company even submitted a confidential draft prospectus in April, which may become public in the coming days.