After around two hours of deliberation, the jury has reached a unanimous verdict in Musk v. Altman, the tech trial of the year. The group found that two claims were barred by the statute of limitations, and a third failed thanks to the dismissal of one of these.
The jury here is an advisory jury, meaning the group is installed solely to offer another opinion to the judge, and its verdict is technically not legally binding. Ultimately, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is the ultimate legal authority — and she accepted the decision.
The jury found that Musk’s claim for breach of charitable trust was barred by the statute of limitations, and the claim that Microsoft aided and abetted such a breach failed with it. Restitution is also barred by the statute of limitations, the jury found.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On X, Musk posted a statement saying he’d be filing an appeal. He said that the judge and jury ruled “on a calendar technicality” rather than the “merits of the case” and that “there is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is WHEN they did it!”
Alex Haurek, a Microsoft spokesperson, said in a statement, “The facts and the timeline in this case have long been clear, and we welcome the jury’s decision to dismiss these claims as untimely. We remain committed to our work with OpenAI to advance and scale AI for people and organizations around the world.”
Musk v. Altman has taken over a federal courtroom in Oakland for three weeks, with the core accusation being that OpenAI strayed from its founding mission and that Musk’s money was earmarked for a nonprofit in particular. Musk alleges that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and company president Greg Brockman breached OpenAI’s charitable trust and participated in unjust enrichment at Musk’s expense. He also alleges that Microsoft aided and abetted the two in breach of charitable trust. Both sides have used every opportunity to smear each other — and through salacious evidence and eyebrow-raising testimony, both sides have come out looking somehow even less trustworthy than when the court process began.