Tech billionaire Elon Musk lost his massive $150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, on Monday.
Following a dramatic three-week trial, a federal jury deliberated for less than two hours unanimously ruling that Musk simply waited too long to file his case.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a non-profit, accused Altman of shifting the company into a commercial moneymaking machine behind his back.
However, the court did not rule on whether OpenAI actually betrayed its original mission.
Instead, the jury decided that Musk missed the legal deadline to sue, as the company’s public shift to a for-profit structure occurred years ago.
Following the swift verdict, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed the case on the spot, stating, “There’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding which is why I was prepared to dismiss on the spot.”
OpenAI’s attorney, William Savitt, celebrated the win, telling reporters that the verdict confirmed the lawsuit was just a competitor’s attempt to “sabotage” the company.
Meanwhile, Musk slammed the decision on X, promising an appeal and writing, “the judge & jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technically.”
