On Monday, jurors in California reportedly reached a verdict in less than two hours on a federal lawsuit brought by Elon Musk against OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman, and president Greg Brockman. The SpaceX founder had allegedly accused OpenAI of moving from its not-for-profit origins to a profit-making model, aided and abetted by Microsoft. Steven Molo, an attorney from Musk’s team, confirmed that they planned to appeal.
The jury ruled unanimously against Elon Musk citing his delayed lawsuit filing
According to NBC News, the federal jury concluded that Elon Musk had waited too long to file the lawsuit against Sam Altman. On May 18, the verdict was reached in less than two hours and was accepted by the judge. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but left the company in 2018 due to internal disagreements over strategy and direction.
The three-week trial began in April, a year after Musk filed a lawsuit alleging he had been defrauded by OpenAI’s focus on artificial intelligence and its move to become a for-profit organization on the back of its product, ChatGPT. The Guardian reported that the company contested the allegations, saying that Musk knew the company’s intentions to shift to a for-profit model, and his decision to leave came only when he failed to gain complete control of the organization.
As per The New York Times, Musk testified, clarifying that he was not against a for-profit model “as long as the tail did not wag the dog.” However, he also added, “It could kill us all. We don’t want to have a ‘Terminator’ outcome. We want to be in a Gene Roddenberry outcome, like ‘Star Trek.’ Not so much a James Cameron movie like ‘Terminator.'”
Altman defended his company, saying that Musk was erratic and difficult to work with, wanted “total control” over OpenAI, and attempted to “kill it.” The trial had become closely watched by the public as it dealt with sensitive issues of AI governance and corporate control.
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Originally reported by Sreemanti Sengupta on Reality Tea.
