Elon Musk is demanding that OpenAI and Microsoft pay him between $79 billion and $134 billion in damages over his claims that he was defrauded.
Details of the claim were revealed by Musk’s lawyer on Friday in a court filing ahead of a high-stakes jury trial set for April in Oakland, California.
The calculation of damages was laid out by the expert witness C. Paul Wazzan, named in the filing as “a financial economist with decades of professional and academic experience.”
The document alleges Musk was defrauded of the $38 million in seed money he donated to OpenAI when he helped found it in 2015, and states he is now entitled to a percentage of OpenAI’s current $500 billion valuation.
Musk said on his social media platform, X, on Friday: “Can’t wait to start the trial. The discovery and testimony will blow your mind.”
Musk is suing OpenAI’s key leaders, including the CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman, over allegations that the AI company misled him by shifting away from its core mission to remain a nonprofit.
Wazzan calculated that Musk should receive $65.50 billion to $109.43 billion in “wrongful gains” from OpenAI. He made a similar calculation for Microsoft’s “wrongful gains,” which equated to between $13.30 billion and $25.06 billion.
OpenAI defended itself in a blog post
Musk has been using recently unsealed court documents to attack his rival in posts on X. On Friday, OpenAI published a blog titled “The truth Elon left out.”
The blog, which provided commentary alongside excerpts from several court documents, said that Musk wanted “full control” of OpenAI, “since he’d been burned by not having it in the past.” It added that OpenAI’s leadership was surprised when Musk suggested having his kids control AGI, or artificial general intelligence, during conversations about succession planning.
The statements address the heart of Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI.
“Mr. Musk’s lawsuit continues to be baseless and a part of his ongoing pattern of harassment, and we look forward to demonstrating this at trial,” a spokesperson for OpenAI told Business Insider. “This latest unserious demand is aimed solely at furthering this harassment campaign. We remain focused on empowering the OpenAI Foundation, which is already one of the best-resourced nonprofits ever.”
Musk and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
