Billionaire Elon Musk “can't wait” for the high-stakes jury trial against OpenAI and its key partner Microsoft, saying the upcoming court proceedings will reveal explosive details.
“Can't wait to start the trial. The discovery and testimony will blow your mind,” the Tesla CEO wrote on X.
He was responding to a post claiming there was a 57 per cent chance he could win the case against OpenAI, while also citing new court documents alleging that OpenAI's president had admitted to wanting to turn the organisation into a for-profit entity.
Musk, one of OpenAI's co-founders, has sued the ChatGPT-maker and its CEO Sam Altman. He has accused the company of abandoning its founding non-profit mission. He alleges that OpenAI defrauded him by restructuring itself into a for-profit venture, in violation of the principles on which it was established.
In a federal court filing submitted on Friday, Musk is seeking damages of up to $134 billion from OpenAI and Microsoft. He argues that he is entitled to what he calls the companies' “wrongful gains,” which he claims came from his early financial and strategic support of the artificial-intelligence startup, Reuters reported.
According to the filing, OpenAI allegedly gained between $65.5 billion and $109.4 billion from Musk's early involvement when he helped co-found the organisation in 2015. Microsoft, a major investor and partner, is said to have gained between $13.3 billion and $25.1 billion as a result.
Musk claims he contributed around $38 million, accounting for roughly 60 per cent of OpenAI's early seed funding, and played a crucial role beyond financing. He claimed to help recruit staff, connect founders with influential contacts, and lend credibility to the project during its formative years.
OpenAI has dismissed the lawsuit as “baseless” and part of a “harassment” campaign by Musk. Microsoft has similarly denied wrongdoing, with a company lawyer saying there is no evidence it “aided and abetted” OpenAI in any alleged misconduct.
In a separate filing, OpenAI and Microsoft have asked the court to restrict the scope of testimony that Musk's expert witness can present to the jury. They argue that the damages analysis is “made up,” “unverifiable,” and “unprecedented,” and that it seeks an “implausible” transfer of billions of dollars from a nonprofit to a former donor who is now a competitor.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has pushed back against Musk's claims. In a post on X, Altman accused Musk of selectively presenting information. “Elon is cherry-picking things to make Greg [Brockman] look bad, but the full story is that Elon was pushing for a new structure, and Greg and Ilya [Sutskever] spent a lot of time trying to figure out if they could meet his demands,” Altman wrote, linking to a blog post released by OpenAI that includes call notes and quotes attributed to Musk.
In another post, Altman said, “Elon said he wanted to accumulate $80B for a self-sustaining city on Mars, and that he needed and deserved majority equity. He said that he needed full control since he'd been burned by not having it in the past, and when we discussed succession, he surprised us by talking about his children controlling AGI.”
Musk left OpenAI in 2018 and now runs xAI, which develops the rival chatbot Grok. Earlier this month, a judge in Oakland, California, ruled that the dispute will be decided by a jury, with the trial expected to begin in April.
