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 Tesla. His complaints fell flat for me given the number of emails where he said that a non-profit was likely a mistake.
This is technical, but Musk clearly never created a charitable trust, which was a precondition for his claims. His funds were donated for general use by OpenAI, not for any specific use that would allow him to claim breach of charitable trust. Also, all of his funds were spent by no later than 2020 which is before his alleged breach in 2023.
Musk unreasonably delayed bringing this case until the success of ChatGPT and starting a competing AI company, and he had unclean hands because he attempted to sabotage OpenAI repeatedly by poaching its key staff while on the board.
---
Sept 1, 2017 DX-669: Funding paused confirmation. Elon is still on the board for a while. DX-707 specifies the board as of Sept 26, 2017, and even suggests adding Shivon, Jared, Sam Teller.
Jan 31, 2018 DX-748: Elon is still discussing things with Greg. Elon: "The only paths I can think of are a major expansion of OpenAI and a major expansion of Tesla AI. Perhaps both simultaneously"
Feb 3, 2018 DX-754: Sam Teller says Elon "just suggested we use SpaceX email for AI stuff so switching over to that"
Feb 4, 2018 DX-755: Sam Teller and Shivon Zilis discuss disabling Openai
Feb 20, 2018 DX-770: Elon officially leaves board (first document I see specifying)
A move that surprisingly didn't get much press.
Even taking it at face value, it's just an idea for the judge to consider, not legally binding for anybody.
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, particularly those regarding donations and charities. I think the only way that promise by Mr Musk could've been made stronger, is if it were a Twitter poll :).
I share all the disillusionment and cynicism about Musk, shared here by others.
But he has also done amazing things. When someone declares they are going to create a Martian colony, something literally "out of this world", and against all odds makes unbelievable progress for years, including re-usable rockets that return and land vertically, more efficient powerful engines, and fast operational turnarounds, while making orbital travel mundane, hanging a criticism of schedules on the weak hook of "yet" is myopic.
If you think objectively Elon is not a psychopath.
Solar Roof: https://electrek.co/2026/05/14/tesla-solar-roof-promise-vs-r...
Tesla Full Self Driving: https://electrek.co/2026/05/18/musk-unsupervised-fsd-widespr...
Hyperloop / Boring Company mass-transit vision
Mars settlement timelines
X as an everything app
I consider him a visionary in a sense of innovation but he is insecure and immoral one.
Needles to say his investors made money on his over promises.
Does he also deliver on some mind-boggling timelines? Well Tesla went from delivering its first cars in 2008 to having the best selling car in the world in 2023, and SpaceX went from not having successfully launched a rocket to delivering about 80% of the world's space payload in roughly the same timeframe. So I'd say that's clearly a 'yes', too.
I do. It’s not his singular focus. But he continues to personally invest himself in pushing the boundaries of human spacefaring capability. That goal seems more meaningful to him that it does to e.g. Bezos, who seems to have a rocket company to look cool.
At one point he was probably sincere but he's been consumed by culture war slop.
You can’t believe musk without simultaneously believing he’s a liar. It’s in HIS fucking book.
I said I believe he wants to go to Mars and will put in the work to make that happen. I didn't say everything he's said is true. Musk absolutely lies. But his actions speak pretty consistently to Mars being a real goal.
But I see a lot of that announcement, and the others someone else pointed to as his "aspirational, but ultimately never going to happen" goals - whether he believes the claims are achievable, or not, he says these things to energise people to working/paying for him to try
It costs him little to nothing to say, and other people's time, effort, and capital to try (and succeed/fail)
Tesla is falling to pieces now, and SpaceX is getting loaded up with completely unrelated projects (xAI) in order to try and make it look saleable (I guess) - it's very difficult to see the Mars announcement as anything but hype.
That all depends on how much he values his credibility, I think..
But to be fair, for someone as good at self promotion as he is, I can believe that the value of the hype could be greater than the cost in credibility.
Did I miss something?
I would not invest.
If Optimus fails to impress, and gain traction, I’d seriously expect Tesla to end up a subsidiary of SpaceX within the next ten years as Elon tries to protect up his net worth.
I do think 'self driving' is still their 'moat' when it comes to EVs. I use it every day, and nothing else comes close. But other than that, building EVs is becoming a cut-throat slim-margin business. I don't think that's where Elon, or Tesla employees, want to spend their energy.
The “west” came up with Tesla and Rivian, and their cars are on the road. And the US tariffed chinese EVs. What else can be done to combat China’s lower priced labor and possibly more lax environmental regulations?
Oh yeah, the announcement is hype. But there is actual work underneath it making real progress in science and engineering that moves us closer to Mars. Some of that, moreover, is work that has limited appeal outside a Martian context.
He has a legion of people propping up his stock by manipulating them into believing he is a wizard.
They want mega constellations for always-on drone guidance and for "golden dome" which would allow for the laser-based shoot-down of long range exo-atmospheric missiles. You need reusable spacecraft to make that tenable. This is not about Mars, don't buy the marketing. At best for civilians, this is about making broadband widely available such that America can dominate internet connectivity going forward and increase spying further. As an example, examine a map of Starlink connectivity, you will notice that Russia and Gaza are excluded.
The Artemis missions will eventually enable the placement of communications equipment on the moon, making anti-satellite weapons less effective at disrupting critical communications.
Fortress America will be invincible forever, so so they desire. The macroeconomics are not working out for them though even though the technological edge is still working for them on that level.
This is a conspiracy theory folks who just Googled In-Q-Tel have been stringing together since Covid. It's not true.
> examine a map of Starlink connectivity, you will notice that Russia and Gaza are excluded
Russia wasn't excluded until recently. That was a problem!
> The Artemis missions will eventually enable the placement of communications equipment on the moon, making anti-satellite weapons less effective at disrupting critical communications
Wat.
??? It's documented that Ukraine is using Starlink extensively.
Golden dome: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/golden-dome-for-america-trump-m...
> Wat.
Communications are an exception to the lunar treaty that governs the militarization of space.
Don't forget that the original space program was designed to peacefully demonstrate a high degree of control over ICBM class rockets. They're so good and accurate, we can put a human on top of one. The government does not spend huge amounts of money on things like "art" or "science" without a motivating factor. This is the capitalist empire, not socialism.
I guess polluting space with shitty satellites and causing environmental disasters with failed and questionably-permitted rocket launches is, technically, pushing on boundaries of human spacefaring capability.
My cat is both cute and fluffy as well as a menace.
Musk has been successful is pure engineering efforts led by engineers he hired achieving the next big-but-not-too-big step.
You ignore his thoughts on everything else.
He's fundamentally a very smart socially inept largely sociopathic emotionally immature obsessively driven boy who read a lot of Heinlein as a kid. Everything about him indicates he sees himself as a saviour of humanity and the only person who has their priorities right and everybody should appreciate and adore him and it's so darn frustrating when they don't, oh wait this other party will adore me, now they don't anymore either oh HUMbug.
Do I believe any of his promises? No absolutely not. But I do think Mars is his massive obsession and that he fervently (If completely Implausibly) believes it'll work and help humanity.
Starting point: money can't buy happiness.
So what to do to be happy? Extreme wealth removes most practical goals like buying things or going places and doing things. Not that you can't do them, but it's not a meaningful goal to work towards.
They have to create their own meaning, whatever that is.
A billionaire trying to create purpose for themselves can be boring, or weird. Which one gets media coverage?
Gates Foundation, Zukerberg's fitness craze, MacKenzie Scott's philanthropy, Bezos and Musk's [whateverness] are all just variations on a theme. And like all people, some will be better at it than others.
Note though, that they will do what it takes to stay wealthy because what would they be without that?
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be empathetic, of course. Someone else’s lack of empathy does not excuse our own. However, consider that billionaires mostly reach that status by exploiting others. Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, they all fit that mould. Being empathetic does not mean being a chump. I’m not going to shed a tear for the poor exploitative billionaire who underpays and overworks people to the point they literally die on the floor of their warehouses and others around them are ordered to keep working.
If given the choice to defend the one billionaire who is fucking up the world and billions of lives in the process, or those who are being exploited by said billionaire, I think it’s obvious where one should place their empathy.
It’s not my responsibility, or yours, or anyone but themselves, that they can’t find meaning in life without being massive assholes. Use some of that money to go to therapy. Use it to enhance the lives of others around you, improve your community and you improve your own well being. It’s not that hard, we’ve known for a long time that a way to happiness is to do things for others.
Musk himself has lamented that money does not buy happiness, and after that expressed the desire to become the first trillionaire. I mean, come on…
And like the rest of us, there are those who cope better or worse, who are morally better or worse. Police are another bunch of people judged similarly.
Which is to say, there are indeed woeful billionaires. Possibly most of them. But don't paint the humans all with the same brush, even if the way to fix society might be to do so legally.
Could also partly be a curiosity to see what one is capable of, or maybe wanting to be known for helming an organization that accomplishes xyz.
Why do you need an extra dollar?
I can answer for myself: New Zealand plans to tax the shit out of anyone that has more[A].
You need a fukton more than median wealth to be able to protect yourself against your own government.
The type of person that enjoys chasing money doesn't stop.
[A] via capital gains taxes and wealth taxes. Also one needs an excessive amount more to handle progressive taxation and means testing.
Realistically I probably need $5m and I'd be set for life.
If I had $10m instead of $5m I don't see how my life would meaningfully change.
Obviously age, family, lifestyle and current savings matter.
The National NZ median house price is about NZD800k, and the Christchurch average estimated value is about NZD800k. That's about how much I spent in a less desirable suburb (Brighton). And I will have to downsize when I reach 65 because otherwise progressive council taxes (rates) and insurance will drawdown my savings too quickly.
We don't have social security in New Zealand: the government takes our taxes and has paid past retirees superannuation (NZD500 per week). But I won't receive that: our government must renege on the expectation because the demographics are unaffordable.
In theory we could grow our economy. But our government doesn't understand how to create economic growth via good incentives. I know that because my personal incentives are totally out of economic whack (I'm the perfect demographic for a second startup). I have acquaintances who are living in cars, and their incentives are also completely fucked.
You simply can't look at what your retirees do now and make any projection based on that: governments have to pull the rug on you.
House prices depend on the next generation signing up for ever bigger mortgages (such that their interest payments eat the majority of their income). When the music stops, homeowner's expectations will be screwed.
In New Zealand we prop up our economy using immigrants: but that is an unsustainable engine.
New Zealand is increasing taxes faster than investments accrue. We have a 5% wealth tax on owning overseas shares worth more than NZD50000 in total. Investment gains are taxed at 30% or more - e.g. dividends or investment funds. We currently have a partial CGT on property, and the CGT will take more and more of property gains (perhaps a good thing to discourage property investors?).
Individually the taxes (and costs such as insurance) appear reasonable, but they screw any hope of using compounding to maintain a reasonable drawdown. A 4% drawdown could absolutely fuck you if you have the bad luck to live a little longer.
Getting taxed at an unsustainable rate is probably unavoidable without radically changing one's life or taking extreme risks. I had thought 1 million savings would be enough with compounding, but it is clear our government wants to take a massive bite of any investment gains leaving the investor with nothing.
We have socialised healthcare, but I think we are heading towards the same reality as the US where you likely have to make yourself broke before getting any help (and the help will be more constrained).
The current retirees get financial and healthcare benefits that I will never ever get. Even though many retirees live on extremely meagre means.
It doesn't matter how much I give to the NZ economy: I believe my politicians when they propose measures to take my rewards from me. I use my engineering to be realistic. I'm not yet a hardened cynic (although perhaps I'm slowly being trained to believe that world view).
I understand the economics of my country better than most.
Most people don't want to see reality. Most people look at what current retirees get, and then assume they will get the same... We aren't being lied to. It is just collectively we all hope too much and trust too much.
New Zeeland is an outlier in that it doesn't have capital gains tax.
Its not the end of the world to have captial gains tax.
I wasn't trolling, but I have unfortunately deviated from the topic.
What isn't fine is my belief that I'm going to be rug-pulled by my government. From multiple sources I believe New Zealand will tax most savings to smithereens. The lie is that I should save for retirement; when any savings will be taken from me over time via a variety of mechanisms including taxes.
Both our Labour (leftish) and National parties will screw me.
The underlying issue is that our demographics leave little choice to the government. The majority of voters are naturally happy to take everything from everyone who has more than them. Voters are selfish.
Attacking the successful is called the tall-poppy syndrome down here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome (I'm nowhere near successful enough for much backlash - but I do fear it).
I was trying to make a argument based on marginal economics. NZ should be encouraging me to increase my income from export earnings: instead it drastically discourages me. I helped found a startup, so I deeply understand the multiple ways our government discourages us from earning export income. My marginal utility from an extra dollar is already drastically diminished because I already have enough to enjoy my life. The >40% taxation on top (incl GST) reduces my motivation to earn money for NZ to nearly zero. I am not a money chaser and I dislike investing.
After some threshold, money as a marginal value becomes meaningless because other non-monetary factors like politics dominate. It seems like nobody cares how much society profits from you - they only care about their own selfish goals.
because thats another 250 billion less for a competitor to use against you.
I'm not sure how one can learn to see the world in a more positive light...
These people aren't satisfied with themselves having more, everyone else must have less too.
Not that I am interested in changing your mind on this. I would, though, encourage you to actually say it's "positive-sum" if that's what you believe instead of hinting and then being vague about it for some reason.
Go to Australia where you pay a stamp duty for buying (to pay for infra) and a CGT for selling
Edit: Changed stamp tax to stamp duty
You can't just apply One Simple Rule like this ("more money is always better" / "more money never makes a difference"). There is, objectively, an amount of money above which another dollar, or another billion, will never make a meaningful difference in your overall lifestyle[0].
The amount isn't a single bright line, but like with so many things, there's an area below it where extra money unquestionably improves your quality of life, and an area above it where it unquestionably doesn't.
[0] unless "your lifestyle" involves manipulating major governments and controlling the way people the world over think, which I wouldn't consider a legitimate part of "lifestyle"
Because billionaires are mentally unwell.
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 that if you donate a certain amount of money to a charity, you can later convert it to a for-profit and claim to be an owner of the charity... On the basis of 'donations' which you got a tax rebate from. Very convenient.
OpenAI donors should have created a new, separate, for-profit entity completely distinct from OpenAI, with a different name, poached the original employees, implemented all the logic from scratch, collected all the training data from scratch... This would have been correct. Basically what Anthropic did seems more like the correct way.
As for the OpenAI that is a public benefits corporation, I know nothing about all the ins and outs of that type of corporation.
Is there some part of this that I'm missing where this was true of OpenAI at some point?
A cynical take is that non-profits are for-salary; they still pay their owners, just using other means.
edit: no, my bad, apparently I misunderstood how non-profits work in the USA. Thanks for the correction :)
You cannot have a % ownership in a nonprofit because its resources must be used exclusively to carry out its mission. You could have a % control in its decision making process.
The $60M in IP has grown to about a $200B stake in the OpenAI for-profit.
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.
That's what the jury found against - they said he was reasonably informed enough to have brought the suit earlier and thus the 3 year clock should start ticking in 2020 not 2023.
In this case I guess the question was 'when did the incident actually happen' with Elon arguing it was later then Altman.
Statutes of limitations are usually not tried by juries because the underlying facts that cause them to kick in are usually not in actual dispute. Instead a fight over statute of limitation is more likely to be over which statute applies or whether some other mitigating circumstance is kicking in, which are matters of law which do not go to a jury.
I can understand why people and me included might think they can decide this before trial.
- if the video is real (not AI / edited / another event)
- if the subject the same person (twins, look alike, too bury to tell)
etc
It seems the biggest value loss to the nonprofit was in this conversion, not in the initial for profit subsidiary creation giving investors capped profit shares.
The 2025 recapitalization was discussed at trial, but it was ancillary since all that changed was the existing for-profit changed from a capped-profit with weird cash flow mechanics to a traditional public benefit corp with ordinary equity.
I think Musk's lawyers told him he'd probably lose this suit before he filed it. I suspect he proceeded mostly out of spite and to embarrass Altman by ensuring the concerns even his friends had about his candor and trustworthiness went on the record and were splashed across the media. Musk knew he had little chance of unwinding the theft of a non-profit (and I doubt he cared much about that).
It would have been much better if Musk had actually cared enough about OAI's original mission to bring suit in 2019. However, I'm still glad Musk did this now because Altman and Brockman (with the help of MSFT and others) DID steal a non-profit, or at least subverted it's mission. And this fleeting bit of public embarrassment (funded by Musk for other spiteful reasons) is the only penalty they'll ever see.
He doesn't have to win to succeed.
The richest man on the planet can keep his enemies tied up in court needlessly until the day he dies.
So not being within the statute of limitations is typically a legal issue so what must've happened here is the jury would've been asked if the earlier OpenAI-MS deals were substantially similar to the latest deal. I can't find the verdict form or the jury instructions but I'll bet that was the key issue the jury decided.
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".
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 do not know” and “I do not recall” on the stand, and argued that the passage of time made it hard for him to remember facts that would have been helpful for OpenAI.
I guess there could be a question of fact in a case where the statues of limitation differ for different injuries, and the factual question is which injury was it.
The jury instructions are public and the final jury form will be published, likely later this week.
I can tell you that the instructions told the jury to decide whether Musk could have brought his case before 2021.
At a certain point, "justice" is deciding that it is impossible to fairly and reasonably adjudicate the dispute in question, and that it is better to have let a guilty person go free than to punish an innocent person. Statutes of limitation are one part of that package of procedures we have in place to make the process as fair and equitable as possible.
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.
Limiting time that an action can be brought is critical to having a fair trial.
> the court just doesn’t want to do its job.
What do you think its job is.
In this case, the jury found that Musk knew or should have known of his alleged injury prior to 2021.
Edit: to augment the sibling comment.
"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).
1. Estoppel. If a party relies on your conduct then you can lose the right to sue over it;
2. Laches. This is a defense against prejudicial conduct, typically by waiting too long to take action;
3. Waiver. Your conduct can waive your right to sue. Imagine you live with someone and they don't pay half of the rent so you cover it. At some point your continued conduct means you lose the right to sue; and
4. The statute of limitations. Some claims simply have to be brought within a certain period. How this applies can be really complex. For example, we saw this in Trump's fraud convictions in New York. His time in office, away from the jurisdiction, essentially suspended the statute of limitations.
Some crimes like murder have no statute of limitations. Others have unreasonably short statutes of limitations. For example, probably nobody can be charged in relation to sex trafficking in the Epstein saga because the statute of limitations is often 5 years with such crimes. This is unreasonable (IMHO) because often the victims are children and unable to make a criminal complaint.
It's also worth adding that not all legal systems have such wide-ranging statutes of limitation as the US does. Founding principles of those other legal systems is that the government shouldn't be arbitrarily restricted for prosecuting criminal conduct. The US system ostensibly favors "timely" prosecution.
Shouldn't the defense have raised the statute of limitations much earlier?