Musk v. Altman: Much ado about nothing
Today I’m talking with Liz Lopatto, who spent the last month covering the Musk v. Altman trial in all its chaos. You’ll hear her describe the courthouse as a “zoo” and explain that there were protests of one kind or another happening outside every day. Both Elon Musk and Sam Altman are big personalities, and people have a lot of feelings about both of them and the AI industry. And in the end… nothing happened! The jury found that Elon had filed his lawsuit after the statute of limitations had run out. You’ll hear Liz explain exactly what’s going on there. Beyond that, the trial was nominally about OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit entity from a nonprofit one and if the way OpenAI went about it cost Elon Musk money. But really, the suit seems mostly to have been about Elon Musk being mad at Sam Altman — or at OpenAI, for being successful without him — and wanting him punished in some way. So in a room full of untrustworthy, unreliable people all fighting with each other, did anyone ev