Nine California jurors are now deliberating over the future of OpenAI, the world-leading artificial intelligence lab. While the trial exploring Elon Musk’s case against OpenAI’s other co-founders and Microsoft has covered territory ranging from the breakup of the founders in 2018 to Altman’s firing and rehiring in 2023, the jurors will be considering a set of fairly narrow questions: Breach of charitable trust — essentially, did OpenAI and co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman violate a specific agreement with Musk to use his donations to OpenAI for a specific, charitable purpose and not general use by the non-profit? Unjust enrichment — did the defendants use Musk’s donations to enrich themselves through OpenAI’s for-profit arm, instead of for charitable purposes? Aiding and abetting breach of charitable trust — did Microsoft, through its interactions with OpenAI, know that Musk had specific conditions on its donations and did it play a significant role in causing harm to Musk? OpenAI has also made three arguments in its defense that the jury will weigh: Statute of limitations — a legal deadline by which a lawsuit must be filed. Here, if OpenAI can prove that any harms to Musk happened before August 5, 2021, for the first count; August 5, 2022, for the second count; and November 14, 2021, for the third count, then his claims will be moot. Unreasonable delay — Musk, by filing his lawsuit in 2024, delayed his claim in a way that made his request for damages unreasonable. Unclean hands — a legal doctrine holding that Musk’s conduct related to his claims against OpenAI was unconscionable and renders them invalid. If Musk wins out, it could mean the end of OpenAI as a for-profit company, but it’s not entirely clear what will result. Next week, the judge will begin a set of new hearings where lawyers from both sides will debate what the consequences of a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs might be. That process could be rendered moot by a negative verdict, however. Breach of charitable trust Musk’s attorneys say the defendants clearly understood that Musk wanted to support a non-profit that would ensure the benefits of AI to the world and prevent it from being controlled by any one organization. In particular, they say a <head>0 billion investment from Microsoft in 2023 into OpenAI’s for-profit affiliate — the first to happen after the statute of limitations — was the event that turned Musk’s concern into conviction. That deal, Musk’s lawyers say, was different from previous investments and led to OpenAI’s investors being enriched by the company’s commercial products, at the expense of the charitable mission of AI safety that Musk promoted. OpenAI’s attorneys have asked every witness to describe specific restrictions put on Musk’s donations, and none have, including his financial adviser Jared Birchall, his chief of staff Sam Teller, or his special adviser Shivon Zilis. They say everyone involved agreed that private fundraising would be required to achieve its goals, and note that Musk himself attempted to launch an OpenAI-affiliated for-profit he would personally control and later tried to merge OpenAI into his company Tesla. They also note the organization’s other donors haven’t said their charitable trust was violated. Importantly, a forensic accountant hired by OpenAI testified that all of Musk's donations had been used by OpenAI well before the key date of August 5, 2021. That is evidence that Musk's donations were already used for their purpose well before he brought his lawsuit, invalidating any charitable trust that may have existed. Mainly, they insist that the for-profit affiliate that conducts most of OpenAI's actual activity continues to fulfill the organization's mission and has generated nearly $200 billion in equity value to support the non-profit foundation. Notably, Sam Altman argued that providing ChatGPT for free helps fulfill the mission of sharing the benefits of AI with the world. Unjust enrichment The plaintiffs point to the multibillion-dollar valuations of stakes held by OpenAI founders like Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, as well as Microsoft, as a sign that Musk's donations were ultimately used for personal benefit, as opposed to supporting the mission of the charity. They argue that the work at OpenAI's for-profit was commercially focused, while the foundation was left essentially dormant, without full-time employees, and, ultimately, not even in control of the for-profit. OpenAI says all of Musk's contributions were used by the foundation by 2020 and that equity distributions came well after he left the organization in 2018. Even beforehand, evidence shows the key players agreed that being able to compensate researchers with stock was key to developing artificial general intelligence (AGI), the hypothetical form of AI capable of performing any intellectual task a human can. OpenAI executives maintain that the for-profit's
