The judge in Musk’s more than $130bn case against OpenAI and Microsoft suggested his damages claim is built on “numbers out of the air.”
OpenAI’s lawyers went into a Friday hearing trying to boot the evidence from Musk’s expert witness, which is meant to prop up a $134bn damages demand.
Musk claims OpenAI and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman conned him by ditching the lab’s non-profit roots after he made charitable donations about a decade ago, with a trial set for April.
US district court judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers told the hearing, “A jury is going to understand that Musk’s expert is pulling these numbers out of the air.”
She was not buying what was being sold, adding, “Do I find it convincing? Not really. Based on what I’ve seen, do I find it particularly persuasive? Not really.”
Even so, Rogers refused to bin the testimony on the spot, saying she would not decide it off “a five-page motion” and would let the jury hear it.
Musk’s damage maths is the spine of the whole complaint, one that could land OpenAI with $109bn and Microsoft with $25bn in damages.
Rogers flagged the obvious problem for Musk if his expert gets kicked, saying that if she excluded him, “this trial is done, because they have no evidence of damages, right?” she said.
Musk’s $134bn figure comes from Berkeley Research Group economist C Paul Wazzan, who is an economist by trade and a venture capitalist.
Wazzan reckons Musk’s early $38mn donation plus non-monetary help amounts to 50-75 per cent of the value of OpenAI’s not-for-profit arm.
That non-profit owns just over a quarter of the for-profit business, which was recently valued at $730bn.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, helped fund it early, and then left the board in 2018 after clashing with Altman.
In 2023, he founded xAI as a rival lab, and it has since merged with his rocket outfit SpaceX.
OpenAI says the case is commercially motivated and part of “an ongoing pattern of harassment”.
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz partner William Savitt told the court there was “no equation” behind Wazzan’s conclusions, and he took aim at the methodology.
Rogers is now staring down a 28 April trial date and the circus of picking jurors for a billionaire punch-up, saying, “I don’t know if I’ll ask prospective jurors a question about billionaires as they are all billionaires, they are all equally liked or disliked.”
