After nearly three weeks of testimony, a federal trial pitting Elon Musk against the artificial intelligence company OpenAI comes down to two questions with seismic implications for the artificial intelligence race.<\/p>\n
Did Sam Altman, OpenAI\u2019s chief executive, and the company president, Greg Brockman, steal \u201ca charity\u201d<\/a> when they took investments from Microsoft and began turning a tiny nonprofit lab into a for-profit, tech industry powerhouse<\/a>?<\/p>\n Or does Mr. Musk \u2014 who co-founded and funded OpenAI before leaving it in 2018<\/a> \u2014 have a giant \u201ccase of sour grapes\u201d because he didn\u2019t stick around long enough to see his creation become a success?<\/p>\n Lawyers for Mr. Musk and OpenAI made their closing arguments in federal court in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday. A nine-member jury is expected to dig into what could turn out to be complex deliberations on Monday. Their decision could cripple OpenAI and permanently alter the tech industry landscape.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk sued OpenAI two years ago<\/a>, claiming that it strayed from its founding agreement to be a nonprofit lab dedicated to the creation of safe A.I. for the benefit of humanity. He is asking for $150 billion in damages and wants Mr. Altman to be kicked off OpenAI\u2019s board of directors.<\/p>\n He also wants to unwind a move that OpenAI made to become a for-profit company, ahead of an initial public offering as early as this year. He added Microsoft as a defendant because of $13 billion it has invested in OpenAI.<\/p>\n Mr. Altman spent most of the day in court on Thursday. Mr. Brockman was there for all of it, and some jurors appeared to tire as arguments stretched into a seventh hour. But Mr. Musk has not been seen in the courthouse since he testified at the start of the trial. He was one of several billionaire executives who joined President Trump<\/a> on his trip to China this week.<\/p>\n As he did throughout the trial,<\/a> Steve Molo, Mr. Musk\u2019s lead lawyer, used his closing argument to belittle the trustworthiness of Mr. Altman, who was briefly fired by OpenAI\u2019s board in 2023 because it did not believe he was always telling it the truth.<\/p>\n \u201cImagine that you\u2019re on a hike, and you come upon one of those wooden bridges that you see on a trail, and it\u2019s over a gorge,\u201d Mr. Molo said to the jurors. \u201cThere\u2019s a river that\u2019s 100 feet below and it looks a little scary, but a woman standing by the entry to the bridge says, \u2018Don\u2019t worry, the bridge is built on Sam Altman\u2019s version of the truth.\u2019 Would you walk across that bridge? I don\u2019t think many people would.\u201d<\/p>\n After Mr. Molo spent two hours disparaging Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman and accusing them of \u201cstealing a charity,\u201d Sarah Eddy, a lawyer for OpenAI, made an equally blunt point. Mr. Musk \u201cnever cared about the nonprofit structure,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat he cared about was winning.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, she argued, Mr. Musk tried to attach OpenAI to a large for-profit when he attempted to fold the A.I. lab into Tesla, his electric car company. On several occasions in 2017, she said, Mr. Musk tried other ways to transform OpenAI into a for-profit venture. Ms. Eddy showed a proposal for a for-profit OpenAI that would have given Mr. Musk 50 percent of the company. Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman would each have had a 7.5 percent stake.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk has made three claims: that OpenAI violated its founding agreement as a nonprofit, that Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman unlawfully enriched themselves, and that Microsoft aided and abetted this scheme through its investments in the A.I. start-up.<\/p>\n His claims face a high legal burden. The jury must first decide whether Mr. Musk brought his suit within several statutes of limitations. His lawyers had to show that he had no way of knowing that OpenAI had breached its founding agreement before Aug. 5, 2021. On the claim that the two executives enriched themselves, that date is Aug. 5, 2022.<\/p>\n The statute of limitations for his claim against Microsoft is four months after that, since Mr. Musk added the tech giant to his suit four months after it was initially filed.<\/p>\n Those key dates help explain why Mr. Musk\u2019s lawyers have focused so much of their case on the events of 2023, shortly after OpenAI released its hit chatbot, ChatGPT. In January 2023, Microsoft followed its initial $1 billion investment in OpenAI, made in 2019, with an additional $10 billion<\/a>. Near the end of the year, the OpenAI board removed Mr. Altman as chief executive<\/a>, saying he could not be trusted to build A.I. for the benefit of humanity, before reinstating him five days later.<\/p>\n If the jury decides that Mr. Musk has met the statute of limitations for the claims, it will then consider the merits of his accusations.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not the end of it. The jury is essentially acting in an advisory role to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding in the case. However the jury decides, it will be up to the judge to decide what to do about it.<\/p>\n As the jury deliberates on Monday, Judge Gonzalez Rogers will hold a separate hearing with lawyers from both sides to determine potential penalties. She will have a range of options. The most extreme would be what Mr. Musk is asking for in his suit. She could also set damages well below $150 billion, or even toss out a decision from the jury and decide that OpenAI did nothing wrong.<\/p>\n