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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

#191
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Muskys problem is does things in the moment as a way to increase popularity without thinking that end up bitting him. e.g the twitter thing - forced to buy when he didn't want.

And the Trump thing, which cratered his car business

Obviously Trump was not going to be a champion of clean, renewable energy. If he knew the "Trump thing" was coming -- which thanks to his position inside Twitter he probably did -- then the rational thing to do was, in fact, what he did. Suck up to Trump to try to avoid or shape the outcome.

What he didn't need to do was alienate his existing customers by acting like he enjoyed it. Did he actually think he was going to sell a lot of EVs to Trumpers?

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

#192
post #184

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…

I'm unfamiliar with the US legal system but do they really need a jury and a trial to determine whether the claims are barred by the statute of limitations? Couldn't this be decided by a judge before trial?

In this case the judge determined that it did require a trial and refused to dismiss based on statute of limitations.

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

#193
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statute of limitations exists to prevent unreasonable delay, to protect defendants from prejudice due to loss of evidence to the passage of time, and to recognize that people who are injured tend to complain immediately and not sit on their claims. This case demonstrates why. Musk only complained after OpenAI was commercially successful with ChatGPT and after he started a competing effort. He repeatedly said “I d…

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.

In the US, court clerks do not decide cases. This was a jury trial, so the jury was required to do its job.

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

#194
post #184

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…

I'm unfamiliar with the US legal system but do they really need a jury and a trial to determine whether the claims are barred by the statute of limitations? Couldn't this be decided by a judge before trial?

Part of the Statute of Limitations isn't just on when he filed the claim, but when he found out or should have found out, by reasonable diligence that he had a claim at all.

So the question before the jury has a significant component of "Should he have found out by this time?" Which is a question of fact, and facts are typically decided by juries, in the US at least.

The two parties can agree together to let a judge decide facts like this, but generally, if one or the other party wants it to go to a jury, it does.

I'm guessing part of Musk's strategy was to have it go to the jury, which are often seen as easier to manipulate than judges, especially when a case is weak. Or perhaps his team already knew this particular judge would be inclined to rule against him, so did the next best thing.

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

#195

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.

[flagged]

No, that is incorrect.

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

#197

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.

Bringing claims promptly so they can be adjudicated is vital for justice. What would you think if you were sued for something that happened decades ago when the time to correct it was soon after the instigating event?

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

#198
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Muskys problem is does things in the moment as a way to increase popularity without thinking that end up bitting him. e.g the twitter thing - forced to buy when he didn't want.

Extreme smartness has its own failure modes

After the many years, there have been insider voices indicating that success was despite Musk in many ways. Musk bought his way into cutting edge tech, it succeeded despite him due to the already amazing people working in the industries. The projects that have his actual involvement are pretty regularly seen as mistakes or flops.

I personally hold to the idea that whoever at SpaceX crafted the team used to pre-occupy Musk and keep him entertained while the rest of the company worked, is largely responsible for its success.

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

#199

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.

If it was wrong in 2019, why did he wait 7 years to do something about it?

The passage of time makes it harder to have a fair trial, as shown by the number of times Elon said I don't know or I don't recall about conversations that would have been recent in 2019 but are now long (or strategically) forgotten.

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

#200
This should have been thrown away from the start, not sure why it saw a day in court. Musk himsrlf created xAi that is for profit. If he really is concerned about ai his own actions do not show that. This is just regret that he lost control of OpenAI, a trillion dollar company, and nothing more.
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