Elon Musk, who until recently was the world’s richest person, has sued OpenAI and Microsoft. He is looking for damages, which could be between $79 billion and $134 billion. The high impact lawsuit is set to go to trial in April in Oakland, California. It dates back to Musk’s claim that he should be paid as an early investor in OpenAI, which he co-founded in 2015 with a large initial contribution of $38 million.
Musk’s legal team responds that this insinuation confuses Musk’s contributions of intellectual capital to OpenAI with wealth. In particular, they stress his important technical and business contributions at the company’s start-up stage. As his attorney stated, the returns on his investment can be in multiples of the money. They think the possible upside might be “many orders of magnitude greater.” The lawsuit alleges that Musk’s wrongful gains from OpenAI could total between $65.5 billion and $109.4 billion, while potential gains from Microsoft’s involvement could be between $13.3 billion and $25.1 billion.
Ever since, Musk’s personal fortune has been estimated to more than $700 billion. For a person like Musk, those proposed damages would amount to a mere rounding error to his fortune. His recent pay package of $1 trillion, approved by Tesla shareholders in November, adds even more proof to the claim that his financial wizardry knows no bounds.
Musk’s aggressive legal maneuvers have alarmed other investors and many in the industry. OpenAI has previously cautioned that Musk will probably do all he can to make intentionally outrageous and headline-seeking statements leading up to trial. They argue that his motives come from a deeper place than just making money.
The lawsuit sheds light on the tensions between Musk and OpenAI. Musk was a central figure in the company’s founding and continued existence to stretch the limits of AI technology. As the case unfolds, industry experts will be closely monitoring its implications for investor rights and the future of artificial intelligence development.