Jury tosses Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman

[ancianita]

9. Perhaps they'd pushed for a jury trial, and the jury'd been selected before the fact came to light,

as revealed in the NYT update:

Mr. Musk filed his suit against the $730 billion artificial intelligence start-up in the summer of 2024, but the jury found that he was aware of the behavior discussed in his complaint against OpenAI as far back as 2021.

Here's The Guardian's take:

The jury’s finding is a non-binding, advisory verdict that left Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers with ultimate power to issue her own ruling in the case. Gonzalez Rogers immediately said that she would agree with the jury’s decision and dismissed Musk’s claims.

“I think there’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding, which is why I was prepared to dismiss on the spot,” Gonzalez Rogers told Musk’s lawyer after the verdict.

The jury found that Musk’s lawsuit, which was filed in 2024, did not fall within the statute of limitations to bring his case. One of the key legal arguments in the trial surrounded whether the harms that Musk alleged took place – including his breach of charitable trust claim – occurred before certain dates. OpenAI argued that Musk was well aware of the company’s plans to pursue a for-profit structure as early as 2017 and therefore his case was filed outside the three-year limit.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/18/sam-altman-trial-victory-elon-musk-openai