Musk seeks $134 billion in damages from OpenAI, Microsoft

Tesla CEO and founder of AI firm xAI Elon Musk has asked a US federal court to award him $79 billion to $134 billion in damages, alleging that OpenAI and Microsoft defrauded him by abandoning OpenAI’s nonprofit mission and partnering with the software giant.

Musk’s lawyers filed the damages request a day after a judge denied OpenAI and Microsoft’s final bid to avoid a jury trial scheduled for late April in Oakland, California, according to multiple reports.

The filing cited calculations that showed Musk is entitled to a share of OpenAI’s current $500 billion valuation as he donated $38 million in seed funding during the founding stage of the



company in 2015.

“Just as an early investor in a startup company may realise gains many orders of magnitude greater than the investor’s initial investment, the wrongful gains that OpenAI and Microsoft have earned — and which Musk is now entitled to disgorge — are much larger than Musk’s initial contributions,” the filing said.

According to court papers, Musk’s side argued that $65.5 billion to $109.43 billions of alleged wrongful gains were made by OpenAI and $13.3 billion to $25.06 billion by Microsoft from Musk’s financial and non-monetary contributions, including technical and business advice. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied the allegations.