Elon Musk is racking up courtroom losses at the worst possible moment—right before his legal cage match with OpenAI and Sam Altman.
And the hits just keep coming.
Since January, Musk has stumbled in cases over OpenAI allegedly stealing secrets from his xAI venture, an advertiser boycott of X, and multiple lawsuits tied to his $44 billion Twitter takeover—including a fraud verdict that could cost him billions. His legal team has cried bias, even objecting to a Delaware judge “liking” a LinkedIn post critical of Musk and blasting a jury’s “4.20” joke as “bizarre and highly questionable.”
Now comes the big one: Musk’s trial in Oakland against OpenAI, where he claims the company betrayed its charitable roots and sold out for profit. The judge has already signaled skepticism about Musk’s eye-popping $134 billion damages claim, describing it as “pulling these numbers out of the air.” Meanwhile, OpenAI’s lawyers tried to drag Burning Man and alleged ketamine use into the case—asking Musk in a deposition, “Do you know what rhino ket is?” He said no.
Musk, who has mocked his rival as “Scam Altman,” insists this is about principle, not payback. His attorney Marc Toberoff said Musk’s pledge to donate any damages to OpenAI’s charitable arm makes it “abundantly clear” the case “has always been about OpenAI’s abuse of the public’s trust, not Elon Musk.” But even some of Musk’s own lieutenants reportedly see the endless litigation as a distraction—especially as he tries to merge xAI with SpaceX ahead of a potential IPO.
For years, Musk’s legal record was formidable. He beat back Tesla shareholder claims over his infamous “funding secured” tweet, won a defamation case brought by a British cave diver, and even had his $56 billion Tesla pay package reinstated on appeal. But lately, the combination of polarizing politics, social media antics, and aggressive legal tactics is landing differently with judges and juries. As law professor Ann Lipton put it, “Musk can pay the money without even noticing, which gives him permission to violate the law that most of us don’t have.”
Source: Financial Times
Editor: When you’re the richest man in the world, fines are pocket change—but juries aren’t. At some point, tweeting through it stops being a strategy and starts being Exhibit A.