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Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

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Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

#171

Post by ben_w »

BeetleB wrote: post #149
aniviacat wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If shareholders have to pay the debt, then the shares will be less valuable, and Musk (whose wealth is measured in shares) will be less wealthy, no?

By a tad. SpaceX's worth is an order of magnitude more than Twitter's debt. I doubt any serious person considering buying shares in SpaceX will spend even a moment worrying about Twitter.

They probably should. I've seen people concerned a subsidiary's GDPR fine would be calculated on the basis of the parent company's global revenue, and in Musk's case something similar has happened in Brazil where Starlink's assets were frozen and justified in part because of how Musk fails to properly delineate between his businesses.

Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

#172

Post by peterfirefly »

granzymes wrote: post #125
Arodex wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know why statutes of limitation exist. I was wondering why it applied here. Apparently it wasn't completely straightforward, as nine jurors were needed to reach a decision on that point, instead of a single judge or even clerk.

Whether the claim accrued before the statute of limitations expired is a question of fact, and is therefore reserved for the fact-finder which in this case was the jury.

[flagged]

Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

#173

Post by 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.

Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

#174

Post by AnimalMuppet »

cubefox wrote: post #90

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

Well, you're allowed to violate the contract if you aren't sued quickly enough. You're allowed to violate the law if you aren't prosecuted quickly enough (for some crimes).

Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

#175

Post by geodel »

ryandrake wrote: post #153
granzymes wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether the claim accrued before the statute of limitations expired is a question of fact, and is therefore reserved for the fact-finder which in this case was the jury.

It seems to me like justice should be about right vs wrong and illegal vs legal, and not “did you fill out form 27B/6 on time?” Dismissing a case on these kinds of trivial procedural grounds seems like the court just doesn’t want to do its job.

It doesn't seem trivial at all. Allowing to flout procedure specially in case of very rich , powerful people with vast resources at their disposal would feel rewarding further for their cluelessness as if they are not already heavily rewarded by rigged system.

Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

#176

Post by dylan604 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #156
nebula8804 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key word being public . People from the industries he operates in were screaming from the rooftops about him for years. Tech people chose to actively ignore their colleagues in automotive and space. I remember the circumstances that led to the creation of /r/realtesla.

> People from the industries he operates in were screaming from the rooftops about him for years. Tech people chose to actively ignore their colleagues in automotive and space. The thing is... SpaceX and Tesla actually delivered something, in the case of Tesla at least until that damn rust bucket. They were (and, with the exception of the rust bucket, still are) miles ahead of the competition. Back when Musk proposed…

> The thing is... SpaceX and Tesla actually delivered something, in the case of Tesla at least until that damn rust bucket. They were (and, with the exception of the rust bucket, still are) miles ahead of the competition

The fact that the quote of "it's all computer" is not wrong with all of the other negatives about it are automotive reasons why I'll never own one. I also choose not to do business with companies with that kind of leadership. A noble idea like by an ignoble person does not bode well for that noble idea.

Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

#177

Post by ben_w »

ngruhn wrote: post #54
exe34 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, twitter ended up useful for him when he used it to buy his way into the US government and close down all the departments that were investigating his companies for breaking all sorts of laws.

On the other hand, buying twitter was the turning point for his public image. Before that, he was Tony Stark. Now he's Lex Luthor.

Nah, too much hair to be Luthor. Bezos is Luthor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umBuxoLHV6M

Ironically, I'd say that Musk is still Stark, in a lot of bad ways: both show narcissism, overconfidence, impulsivity, ego-driven decision making, control issues, disregard for consequences, and volatility.

Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

#178

Post by joshkel »

Arodex wrote: post #93
granzymes wrote: post #81

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 law…

>Musk could have brought the same lawsuit in 2019 or 2021, meaning his claims were untimely for the 3 year statute of limitations. Why is a hypothetical ground for this decision? "You didn't complain immediately the first time you got robbed, therefore all the robbing since then is covered by a statute of limitation".

https://localnewsmatters.org/2026/05/16/musk-v-altman-week-3... has a good explanation of the legalities:

"If the jury determines that at any time before those dates, Musk either knew — or had or should have known — that he had a claim that he could bring, then his suit was brought too late. The consequence of being too late is swift and absolute. If the lawsuit was filed late for a particular claim, that claim is out of the case; if it was too late for all of Musk’s claims, the lawsuit is over."

That's where the question of fact (i.e., the requirement for a jury decision) came in: "What was the statute of limitations?" is a question of law, but "When should Musk have known that OpenAI was moving too much toward for-profit?" is a question of fact (and, here, determines whether the statute of limitations applies).

Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

#179

Post by Calavar »

filoleg wrote: post #147
Calavar wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GME also beat the S&P 500 over the past 10 years. Is this evidence that Ryan Cohen is a business genius? Tesla has been a meme stock for about five years now, maybe more. Its valuation correlates with Musk's abilities as a showman and media figure, not a businessman.

> GME also beat the S&P 500 over the past 10 years. Is this evidence that Ryan Cohen is a business genius? GME did not beat the S&P500 over the past 10 years, and it is just the evidence of you needing to verify your claims before making them. Over the past 5 years[0]: S&P500 up by 77%, GME down by 50%. Over the past 10 years: S&P500 up by 260%, GME up by 207%. GME performance in the past 10 years doesn't indicate th…

I did look up numbers before I made that claim:

From Yahoo Finance

GME Jan 1, 2016: $7.09, $5.49 adjusted (accounting for dividend disbursements)

GME Jan 1, 2026: $20.09

266% or 365% return depending on how you count dividends. 365% for GME vs. 306% for S&P 500 over the same period (also using adjusted for dividend numbers).

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