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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

#441

Post by madrox »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #437
overgard wrote: post #423

My suspicion is that winning might have been a secondary goal. When OpenAI goes to IPO, all the testimony of former executives about Altman's behavior is going to be in the public record. A lot of that testimony makes OpenAI sound very chaotic and poorly run. That could prevent large institutional investors from wanting to take the risk.

It's not a bad theory, but I think you're making the logical man's mistake of trying to ascribe a lot of intelligence and strategy to a move because on the surface it's irrational. Not every villain's move is a mysterious Xanatos gambit. Sometimes billionaire assholes just do dumb stuff because they can and/or because they're full of small-minded hatred. Sometimes rich, powerful people do stuff that's irrational. Whe…

I think this depends on point of view. I do think much of this comes down to sour grapes that they didn't let Elon control OpenAI, and this is the wedge he chose to retaliate. Would he have sour grapes if he didn't want to win the AI race himself?

Really comes down to what you think his primary motivation is and what are just benefits.

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

#442

Post by madrox »

elicash wrote: post #435
overgard wrote: post #423

My suspicion is that winning might have been a secondary goal. When OpenAI goes to IPO, all the testimony of former executives about Altman's behavior is going to be in the public record. A lot of that testimony makes OpenAI sound very chaotic and poorly run. That could prevent large institutional investors from wanting to take the risk.

Musk texted OpenAI's Brockman about a settlement two days before trial. So I take that to mean Musk wanted a settlement as primary goal, and that the threat to OpenAI's reputation was just an (unsuccessful) means to get what he wanted. That isn't to say it wasn't personal for Musk, just that he would have preferred to have gotten paid. As to Musk texting "By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated me…

It seems like the real sour grapes are over the fact they wouldn't let him run OpenAI. If he cared about a payday, ironically, he probably would have had more success because he would have brought this suit sooner.

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

#443

Post by overgard »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #437
overgard wrote: post #423

My suspicion is that winning might have been a secondary goal. When OpenAI goes to IPO, all the testimony of former executives about Altman's behavior is going to be in the public record. A lot of that testimony makes OpenAI sound very chaotic and poorly run. That could prevent large institutional investors from wanting to take the risk.

It's not a bad theory, but I think you're making the logical man's mistake of trying to ascribe a lot of intelligence and strategy to a move because on the surface it's irrational. Not every villain's move is a mysterious Xanatos gambit. Sometimes billionaire assholes just do dumb stuff because they can and/or because they're full of small-minded hatred. Sometimes rich, powerful people do stuff that's irrational. Whe…

That's fair although I didn't mean to imply that I thought it was a rational move. I think if he had won, it might have actually been worse for him (who knows what the collateral damage to the AI bubble would have been). I just think his goal was mostly to do as much harm as possible to people he clearly hates.

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

#444

Post by overgard »

elicash wrote: post #435
overgard wrote: post #423

My suspicion is that winning might have been a secondary goal. When OpenAI goes to IPO, all the testimony of former executives about Altman's behavior is going to be in the public record. A lot of that testimony makes OpenAI sound very chaotic and poorly run. That could prevent large institutional investors from wanting to take the risk.

Musk texted OpenAI's Brockman about a settlement two days before trial. So I take that to mean Musk wanted a settlement as primary goal, and that the threat to OpenAI's reputation was just an (unsuccessful) means to get what he wanted. That isn't to say it wasn't personal for Musk, just that he would have preferred to have gotten paid. As to Musk texting "By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated me…

It's hard to know without knowing the terms of the settlement. It could have easily been something he knew OpenAI would find to be unacceptable.

I think regardless it would be extremely hard for him to make people hate Altman et al. more than himself. Altman's flaws are more subtle and require paying attention to a pattern of behavior. Musk has beem pure cringe for 5+ years now.

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

#445

Post by karmickoala »

HardCodedBias wrote: post #314
greenpizza13 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Need standing to claim theft, need to be within statue of limitations. It's not theft unless a jury says it is, they didn't say it is.

I think that your first statement is correct. I do not think that your second was correct.

O.J. Simpson comes to mind.

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

#446

Post by ActorNightly »

overgard wrote: post #423

My suspicion is that winning might have been a secondary goal. When OpenAI goes to IPO, all the testimony of former executives about Altman's behavior is going to be in the public record. A lot of that testimony makes OpenAI sound very chaotic and poorly run. That could prevent large institutional investors from wanting to take the risk.

Im just curious what gives you an idea Musk and his cronies are actually intelligent enough to do this.

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

#448

Post by burkaman »

aeternum wrote: post #396
burkaman wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are referring to a tweet on March 16th where he said "Btw, the proceeds of any legal victory in the OpenAI case will be donated to charity. I will in no way enrich myself." Not during the trial, not a donation to OpenAI's charity, and obviously not meaningful given his track record of not following through on public statements.

It was official, he amended the lawsuit to codify it, read it for yourself: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Musk-...

Thanks, couldn't find this. This is essentially a proposal to the court about how the case could be resolved though, not a promise, and he only proposed it after the judge denied his original proposal (https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Musk-...), which was "give me $134 billion". I think it would have been a little more credible if he had requested this originally.

Even taking it at face value, it's just an idea for the judge to consider, not legally binding for anybody.

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

#449

Post by 6510 »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #418
aeternum wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, during the trial he promised to donate any potential financial winnings to OpenAI's charity. A move that surprisingly didn't get much press.

I genuinely don't know how to make a non-sarcastic statement about Mr. Elon Musk's promises. I especially struggle to not make a Venn diagram of people who still take Mr. Musk's promises seriously, and current state of American politics. I simply cannot make a sentence about Mr. Musks promises that will pass Hacker News guidelines of being serious and productive. ...And that's how I feel about Mr. Musks promises, par…

Each buck we spend is a vote for a business (which is a bag of ideals and methods) It is surprising that people apparently desire a future where they don't even have to bother listening to those in charge as every word is completely irrelevant. I had considered they don't understand capitalism is quite open to influence but they also do it in elections.

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

#450

Post by cedws »

fastball wrote: post #94
dragontamer wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You speak as if Elon Musk didn't buy tons of AI chips for full self driving (Dojo) and COMPLETELY flub it. It's the same as always. Musk himself is an awful business man. He relies upon buying the success of others and taking over. Outside of that, he's kind of awful. Initiatives started by Musk himself almost inevitably fail.

Tesla wasn't "successful" before he "took it over" (read: invested most of their seed capital and ran the actual day-to-day operations). SpaceX, founded entirely by him alone, is also the most valuable space technology company on earth, so...

If you look at initiatives rather than companies most of what Musk has done has been a failure. Boring Company, Hyperloop, Roadster, Semi, full self driving, robotaxis, solar roofs, Optimus, mission around the moon, men on Mars. The list goes on.

Tesla is an incredibly overvalued company rapidly losing ground to China that survives by Musk’s image of being a futurist, and by announcing fake products that never see the light of day.

SpaceX has been headed by Gwynne Shotwell since the early days and usually when Musk inserted himself it’s been a mess.

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