Jury rules against Elon Musk in OpenAI lawsuit
Elon Musk lost his lawsuit against OpenAI, a big win for Sam Altman and Greg Brockman and a major setback for Musk.
- The jury rejected Musk's claims of breach of charitable trust and fraud after 11 days of testimony.
- Musk was seeking $130 billion in restitution and got nothing; Altman and Brockman stay in place.
- Musk's credibility took a hit because he had offered Altman a Tesla board seat to absorb OpenAI as a for-profit, the same kind of move he later sued over.
- A former OpenAI board member close to Musk testified the for-profit structure was openly debated back in 2017-18, and she voted to approve the Microsoft investment Musk attacked.
- The long delay in suing — waiting until OpenAI was near a trillion-dollar valuation — likely hurt the case and made it look like a money grab.
Outlook: The ruling has no impact on the coming SpaceX IPO, which is expected to benefit from licensing Musk's data centers to Anthropic and other AI firms.