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Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
521–530 of 642 posts
Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
#522Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the grounds of "I have infinite money and lawyers to drag this thing out forever, whether I'll win or not."
Nothing like 'vexatious litigation' in the US? https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vexatious-litigants
Muddying the right of appeal with vexatious litigation is a very dark road to go down.
I'm sure people in the US are in no mood to take any advice from us here in the UK, having just recently abolished the right to a jury trial.
Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
#523It’s dissapointing that the only significant obstacle standing in the way of this ‘privatisation’ was Elon Musk’s personal vendetta, when it affects the entire world’s future. Big money.
Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is missing the main point that Musk was never the owner of OpenAI, neither was Sam, nor the employees. The owners are the American people. I presume Musk got a tax rebate from his donation, courtesy of the taxpayer; so did every other donor. The fact is, OpenAI was a non-profit belonging to the public and it was appropriated by the donors... Who already got their tax cuts. This is setting a precedent tha…
The intellectual property (code, data) was transferred from the nonprofit to the for-profit for about $60M, which is what an independent firm hired to assess the value said the IP was worth in late 2018 / early 2019. The nonprofit itself was never converted to a for-profit, and indeed remains a nonprofit to this day. The $60M in IP has grown to about a $200B stake in the OpenAI for-profit.
So you're saying that the non-profit (OpenAI Foundation) owns a certain percentage of the for-profit (OpenAI Corporation)?
Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
#525Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I read around, this lawsuit raised an important question: can a non-profit become a for-profit company? To that extent, what Musk was happy or unhappy with is irrelevant. What is actually allowed by the law is more important. However, it seems that the lawsuit was not phrased that way and Musk just looked for damages to himself. In that frame it's not much of a surprise that things ended this way.
Would Musk have standing for asking that question about non-profit to for profit companies? I think this would be a role for the government rather than a private individual and the Trump admin is not exactly fond of enforcing regulations.
It does not matter what standing Musk has, the question is the important part, not the asker. You can accuse him of hipocrisy and that still makes no difference. He can still be the vehicle for the question to be asked.
The role of the government is to make the laws, and to apply them when violation are reported. It is also to regulate new situations as they arise, for example, if a court decides the law allows a non-profit to become a for-profit and that is deemed as not desirable, new laws can be passed to amend that.
It is the government roles, however, to going around to aks hypothetical questions before they are risen by someone, as there are too many possible hypotheticals, most never materialize, and that would be a conflict of interest. In that case Musk is as good as a vehicle as anyone else because he is bringing to the court a real-life problem that needs to be decided.
The Trump admin is not fond of enforcing regulations as the Biden admin was not fond of enforcing other regulations. That shows you can't expect the govenment to take that role since it's discretionary.
Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
#526Because 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?
There was a way that the statute of limitations hadn't run out as the clock started when Elon became aware of OpenAI's shift to for-profit ambitions. That made it more subjective of a judgement than simply reading a calendar, so it went to a jury to determine when Elon knew OpenAI started planning to change structure to be for-profit, then they could look at a calendar.
Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
My own thoughts: If I had been on the jury, I would have found against Musk on every point. His lawyers created a “3 phases of doubt” to try and sidestep the statute of limitations, but it was clearly bogus and he was on notice of OpenAI creating a for-profit in 2019. Musk was perfectly happy to have OpenAI be a for-profit, a non-profit with an attached for-profit (the current structure), or even just absorbed into T…
As I read around, this lawsuit raised an important question: can a non-profit become a for-profit company? To that extent, what Musk was happy or unhappy with is irrelevant. What is actually allowed by the law is more important. However, it seems that the lawsuit was not phrased that way and Musk just looked for damages to himself. In that frame it's not much of a surprise that things ended this way.
> can a non-profit become a for-profit company?
Presumably a non-profit can move all its staff and its stuff into a for-profit anyway.
Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
#528Because 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…
My own thoughts: If I had been on the jury, I would have found against Musk on every point. His lawyers created a “3 phases of doubt” to try and sidestep the statute of limitations, but it was clearly bogus and he was on notice of OpenAI creating a for-profit in 2019. Musk was perfectly happy to have OpenAI be a for-profit, a non-profit with an attached for-profit (the current structure), or even just absorbed into T…
> If I had been on the jury, I would have found ...
No, you wouldn't.
The case was thrown out of court before you have any chance to comment or decide on that.
Jury don't randomly "found" something. The court ask questions, the Jury answers those.
Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
My own thoughts: If I had been on the jury, I would have found against Musk on every point. His lawyers created a “3 phases of doubt” to try and sidestep the statute of limitations, but it was clearly bogus and he was on notice of OpenAI creating a for-profit in 2019. Musk was perfectly happy to have OpenAI be a for-profit, a non-profit with an attached for-profit (the current structure), or even just absorbed into T…
> If I had been on the jury, I would have found ... No, you wouldn't. The case was thrown out of court before you have any chance to comment or decide on that. Jury don't randomly "found" something. The court ask questions, the Jury answers those.
Juries are the "finders of fact". That's the phrase often used anyway.
Re: Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
#530Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think you'd be hard pressed to find a single serious person who'd say Twitter is a better product/experience today than prior to the acquisition. I stated that it already was in the gutters. That does not imply it's gotten out of the gutters ever since. Musk took something that was already pretty much dead and gave it a final shot.
> something that was already pretty much dead You keep saying that, but prior to the acquisition Twitter had finally managed to start turning a profit.
> You keep saying that, but prior to the acquisition Twitter had finally managed to start turning a profit.
Profit isn't the only thing that matters in this world ffs.
Genuine content that was not relating to politics, the news and nerd topics had long since gone off to Tiktok, Snapchat, Instagram and the likes. Those of us who had been on Twitter since the early days 'member what we lost.