Elon Musk is demanding that OpenAI and Microsoft pay between $79 billion and $134 billion in damages over his claims that he was defrauded.
Details of the allegations were disclosed Friday by Musk’s lawyers in a court filing ahead of a high-stakes jury trial scheduled for April in Oakland, California.
The computation of damages was presented by expert witness C. Paul Wazan, named in the filing as a “financial economist with decades of professional and academic experience.”
The document alleges that Musk was defrauded of $38 million in seed money he donated when he helped found OpenAI in 2015, and says he is now entitled to a portion of OpenAI’s $500 billion valuation.
“I can’t wait for the trial to begin. The findings and testimony will be shocking,” Musk said on his social media platform X on Friday.
Musk is suing OpenAI’s key leaders, including CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman, for misleading him by straying from the AI company’s core mission of remaining nonprofit.
Wazan estimated that Musk would receive between $65.5 billion and $109.43 billion in “illicit gains” from the United States. Open AI. He made a similar calculation for Microsoft’s “ill-gotten gains,” which he put at between $13.3 billion and $25.06 billion.
OpenAI defended itself in a blog post
Masks I’ve been using lately unsealed court documents On Friday, OpenAI published a blog titled “The Truth Elon Missed.”
The blog provided commentary along with excerpts from several court documents, saying Musk wanted “full control” of OpenAI because “he got burned in the past for not having it.” He added that during a succession planning conversation, OpenAI executives were surprised when Musk suggested having his children control AGI (artificial general intelligence).
This statement gets to the heart of Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI.
“Mr. Musk’s lawsuit remains baseless and part of his ongoing pattern of harassment, and we look forward to proving this in court,” an OpenAI spokesperson told Business Insider. “This latest unserious request is only intended to further this campaign of harassment. We remain focused on empowering the OpenAI Foundation, already one of the most resourced nonprofits in history.”
Musk and Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
