Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

mrcwinn

Advice for Elon: you can actually use ChatGPT on the web or the desktop app to schedule reminders for you, like "file lawsuit against OpenAI."

rvz

Sam is just too good at this game and as I said before [0] is far worse than Elon and also outsmarted him. Of course this will be appealed but, as you see the claims just don't stick. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41651664

2b3a51

Reached for comment by TechCrunch, Musk’s lead counsel Marc Toberoff said, “One word: Appeal.” One wonders on what grounds? In the UK, in a civil case like this, the judge I think comments on the likelihood of an appeal avenue once the verdict has been reached.

mustaphah

The strongest evidence against Musk was Musk. His own 2017 emails supporting for-profit chats made the "betrayal" narrative very hard to sell.

paxys

> A nine-person jury found that Elon Musk did not bring his lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman until after the expiration of the three-year statute of limitations. Intersting outcome. So it's more of a dismissal on technical grounds rather than a complete loss.

loxodrome

Ending a trial over a bureaucratic technicality is not good justice.

tahoeskibum

Anybody read the article:"...that his lawsuits had been filed too late."

tptacek

I think a lot about how there's a very plausible alternate history where Elon Musk controls most of the frontier of AI.

tskj

Annoying that it had to be Musk to take this fight, but isn't it very unfortunate that OpenAI is allowed to do this non-profit whoopsie we're now a for-profit thing?

cityofdelusion

This should clear the path to the IPO and lead to a VERY profitable payday for those holding OpenAI equity. Millionaires and billionaires will be minted ~one year from now.

granzymes

Because no one has commented yet on the legal significance: Musk lost today because the jury found that he waited too long to bring his claims. The jury answers only yes/no questions, so we do not know their exact thoughts, but it is likely they determined that the 2019 and 2021 Microsoft deals were too similar to the 2023 Microsoft deal that was the centerpiece of Musk’s lawsuit. Musk could have brought the same lawsuit in 2019 or 2021, meaning his claims were untimely for the 3 year statute of limitations. Because the statute of limitations is a precondition, the jury was not asked to find any other facts. They may tell the press what they thought on other issues, or they may not. The judge was prepared to immediately accept the jury’s finding, and said she agreed that the jury’s decision was supported by the evidence. It is possible for Musk to appeal, but success is vanishingly unlikely. Whether Musk’s claims are barred by the statute of limitations is a quintessential question of fact, and appellate courts are extraordinarily deferential to factual findings by juries so as a practical matter it’s almost impossible to appeal this verdict.

jdw64

It turns out 'stealing a charity' is strictly defined in California law as 'commercializing it with Microsoft instead of my car company.' Glad we finally got that clarified

cubefox

So you are allowed to violate the law if you aren't sued quickly enough.

thesdev

I hope he appeals. Not cheering for Musk, cheering for the fight.

alok-g

The lawsuit side, genuinely asking, how does the for-profit under non-profit setup work? What are the respective roles? Is the combination effectively a non-profit still? Or is this some kind of legal loophole to make profits under a non-profit?

jgalt212

Who cares if the plaintiff or defendant won? The trial had great expository value regarding all the players involved.

atom_arranger

Aside from the disagreements between these parties, what about the precedent of running a non-profit, and then transferring all IP to a for profit when it’s convenient to do so? I wonder if the government or taxpayers have a case to bring regarding that.

shevy-java

Both should be fined for wasting our time with fake-troll court cases. Basically the title of the court case was: "Is Skynet slop going to be helpful to mankind". We all know how that story ends. Thus, fining both is warranted. When the superrich go to court, they should pay an extra fee. Like a billion per court case or so.

keeda

While none of the billionnaires on the stand came across as stellar paragons of virtue, it's hilarious that even they could not stand Elon. That said, even though Altman is a shifty dude who's clearly playing a Game of Thrones while all others are playing Capitalism, I am extremely grateful that it's him running OpenAI and not Elon. Seeing what Elon has done to Twitter, I shudder to think of what he'd do with ChatGPT. The level of reach and subtle influence he would have is insane. He could do with private chats what he's doing to public discourse, and it would all be invisible. On the other hand, seeing what he's done with Grok, it's very likely OpenAI would be where xAI is and would never reach this level of adoption and influence. Which seems to be what most people at OpenAI were really worried about.

jsLavaGoat

He lost his trial. That is just the first phase of a lawsuit.