Tag: elon musk

Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI make their final case in a trial that could shape AI’s future

Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI made their final arguments Thursday in the landmark trial whose outcome could shape the future of artificial intelligence.

Musk, the world’s richest man, was a co-founder of OpenAI, which started in 2015 and went on to create ChatGPT. His lawsuit filed in 2024 accuses OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his top deputy of betraying a plan to keep it as a nonprofit and shifting into a moneymaking mode behind his back.

The trial’s outcome could sway the balance of power in AI — breakthrough technology that increasingly has raised fears about its potential impacts on the economy, society and even humanity’s survival. Scrutiny of Altman’s leadership comes at a crucial time for the company and its competitors, Musk’s own AI firm and Anthropic, formed by a group of seven ex-OpenAI leaders.

All three firms are moving toward planned initial public offerings that are expected to be among the largest ever. Musk is seeking damages and changes to OpenAI’s business structure, as well as Altman’s ouster from company leadership. If Musk wins, it could derail OpenAI’s IPO plans.

Timing of lawsuit is key question
One of the jury’s tasks is to decide if Musk filed his lawsuit in time. Much of the testimony has centered on OpenAI’s early years after its founding, but there’s a relatively short timeline to allege the claims Musk is making of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.

OpenAI has argued that Musk waited too long and cannot claim harms that occurred before August 2021.

The judge wrote in a court filing last month that “if the jury finds that Musk failed to file his action within the statute of limitations, it is highly likely” that she will “accept that finding and direct verdict to the defendants.”

If the jury decides the lawsuit was filed in time, it then has to decide if OpenAI had a “charitable trust” that was broken by OpenAI and its executives. Musk’s other claim means jurors must determine whether Altman, Greg Brockman — co-founder and president — and OpenAI unjustly enriched themselves at Musk’s expense.

For Microsoft, a co-defendant in the trial, the jury has to decide whether the company aided and abetted that breach. Musk invested $38 million in OpenAI during its first years, and Microsoft became OpenAI’s biggest investor after Musk’s departure.

Musk lawyer focuses on Altman’s credibility
Altman and Brockman were in the courtroom Thursday, while Musk was in China with President Donald Trump and other prominent tech executives.

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When one man, a civilian, controls the kill switch for military ops

In September 2022, Ukrainian forces prepared to launch a drone strike on the Russian naval fleet anchored off Crimea. The drones never arrived.

Elon Musk had decided, unilaterally, not to activate Starlink coverage over the region. But he wasn’t simply declining to help. SpaceX had already been managing battlefield access for both sides: restricting Russian use, imposing speed limits to prevent drone integration, and maintaining a verified whitelist with Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense. One private citizen, with no security clearance and no accountability to any electorate, was governing the battlefield connectivity of an active war.

The public debate treats this as a story about Elon Musk — his politics, his proximity to the White House, his X posts. That framing lets the actual problem off the hook. Replace Musk with the most patriotic, internationalist, apolitical CEO imaginable and the structural problem remains identical. The Pentagon has spent a decade building critical military functions on infrastructure it can’t legally compel, and the consequences are now arriving in real time.

A common reflex is to argue that private defense contractors have always been central to American military power. Lockheed Martin builds the F-35; Raytheon builds the Patriot. What’s different now is the control plane: who has real-time administrative control during use. When the government buys a tank, it owns it. The keys don’t expire. The manufacturer can’t disable it mid-mission or impose terms in combat. Software and AI are different. Vendors keep ongoing control — updates, access, and usage limits. They don’t sell a capability; they license access to one, and the license has conditions.

Those conditions have already collided with active operations. After months of failed negotiations, the Pentagon formally designated the AI firm Anthropic a supply-chain risk because of restrictions on how its model could be used. The Pentagon was explicit in its decision: “The military will not allow a vendor to insert itself into the chain of command.” Emil Michael, the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, described the moment he fully grasped the vulnerability: Anthropic’s models were already embedded across combatant commands and intelligence agencies, wired into classified workflows. Anthropic retained the control plane inside the Pentagon’s cloud — able to update, restrict, or shut off access. When Michael raised hypothetical crisis scenarios, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, offered exceptions case by case. “Just call me if you need another exception,” Michael recalls him saying. In a genuine crisis, a commander can’t call a vendor to authorize military action, nor should he have to.

This isn’t about whether Anthropic’s rules are reasonable. They weren’t set by anyone accountable to the joint force, there’s no override mechanism, and the Pentagon had made itself dependent on systems it doesn’t control.

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Paris Prosecutors Move to Criminally Charge Musk and xAI

Paris prosecutors announced Thursday that their investigation into Elon Musk’s social platform X has been upgraded to a full criminal probe.

The Paris prosecutor’s office is now asking investigating magistrates to formally charge Musk, former X CEO Linda Yaccarino, and three companies linked to the platform, including xAI and X.AI Holdings Corp. If they refuse to appear for those charges, prosecutors say judges can issue warrants that carry the same legal weight.

The charges cover a long and growing list of alleged offenses: Complicity in possessing and distributing sexual images. Nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes. Denial of crimes against humanity. Fraudulent extraction of user data. Violation of the secrecy of electronic correspondence. Manipulation of an automated data processing system as part of an organized group. Illegal collection of personal data without adequate security.

The announcement came just three weeks after the US Department of Justice refused to cooperate with the French investigation, calling it an attempt to regulate American speech through foreign criminal law. France pushed ahead anyway.

The investigation did not begin with deepfakes or child safety. It began with politics.

French Member of Parliament Éric Bothorel, a member of President Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, filed a complaint in 2025 alleging that X’s algorithm had been manipulated for the purpose of “foreign interference” in French politics.

Bothorel accused the platform of narrowing “diversity of voices and options” after Musk’s takeover and cited Musk’s “personal interventions” in moderation decisions.

A second complaint, from a senior official in French public administration, alleged the same thing, claiming to observe a surge of “hateful, racist, anti-LGBTQ” content aimed at skewing democratic debate.

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Paris public prosecutor opens judicial investigation into Elon Musk and X

Paris’ public prosecutor has opened a judicial investigation into Elon Musk’s X social media platform, a new step in a probe over alleged abuse of algorithms and fraudulent data, the prosecutor’s office said on May 7.

The latest legal development puts investigating judges in charge of the probe and follows tech billionaire Mr Musk’s failure to appear at an April 20 summons for questioning.

The public prosecutor is requesting that judges place X.AI Holdings Corp, X Corp and xAI, as well as Mr Musk and former X chief executive officer Linda Yaccarino, under formal investigation.

This would be achieved by summoning them for that purpose, or, if they failed to appear, judges could issue a warrant which would be equivalent to putting them under formal investigation, the statement said.

Reuters could not immediately reach representatives for Mr Musk or X.

Mr Kami Haeri, a lawyer for X, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The investigation, which has been expanded in past months to include suspected complicity in the distribution of child pornography and the creation of sexual deepfakes by Grok, has added to strains in relations between the US and Europe over Big Tech and free speech.

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Judge Prevents Elon Musk’s Case Against OpenAI from Turning into a Trial of AI

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers repeatedly intervened during the third day of Elon Musk’s testimony in his lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman, steering attorneys away from broad debates about AI’s potential threat to humanity.

NBC News reports that the contentious legal battle between Elon Musk and OpenAI entered its third day with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers firmly redirecting the proceedings back to the core legal issues at hand. The case centers on Musk’s claims that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman betrayed public trust by enriching himself through the AI company they co-founded in 2015 as a nonprofit organization.

The day began with a heated exchange when Musk’s attorney Steven Molo attempted to discuss AI’s potential dangers. “This is a real risk, we all could die as a result of artificial intelligence,” Molo argued in objection to the judge’s efforts to limit the discussion.

Judge Rogers quickly shut down this line of argument, pointing out the irony in Musk’s position. “It’s ironic your client, despite these risks, is creating a company that is in the exact space,” Rogers stated. “There are some people who do not want to put the future of humanity in Mr. Musk’s hands … But we’re not going to get into that business.”

The lawsuit represents the culmination of a years-long dispute between the two tech leaders, who have previously exchanged public criticism online. Altman was present in the courtroom during Musk’s testimony on Wednesday and Thursday.

The four-week trial could have significant implications for OpenAI’s future and its flagship product, ChatGPT. Musk is seeking approximately $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and co-defendant Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s major financial supporters. His lawsuit claims that OpenAI benefited substantially from his financial contributions, advice, recruitment assistance, and business connections.

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DOJ joins Musk’s AI company in suing Colorado for new ‘DEI’ regulatory law

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced its support for Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, as it sues the state of Colorado over a new law set to go into effect in June that would regulate AI technology.

The company filed a suit against Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Thursday to prevent the enforcement of the law, which would impose new requirements on AI programs to protect users from “algorithmic discrimination” in education, employment, healthcare, housing and financial services, and other sectors.

xAI argued that the statute “severely burdens the development and use of AI” and infringes on First Amendment free speech protections.

“Its provisions prohibit developers of AI systems from producing speech that the State of Colorado dislikes, while compelling them to conform their speech to a State-enforced orthodoxy on controversial topics of great public concern,” the lawsuit reads.

It also claims that the law would force Musk’s company to rework its AI chatbot called Grok, which can be found on the social media platform X, to “conform to a controversial, highly politicized viewpoint” instead of maintaining its objectivity.

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division announced on Friday that it partnered with the Civil Division to file a motion to intervene in the suit.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said in a video posted to social media that the state law in question requires companies to comply with its “crazy, woke, DEI goals,” referring to the “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” policies instated widely across left-leaning and liberal organizations.

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Elon Musk Reveals COVID Vaccine Injury After Former Pfizer Official Admits Shots Likely Killed Tens of Thousands in Germany

In an X post that went viral Sunday, Elon Musk said he “felt like I was dying” and almost went to the hospital after taking his second COVID-19 vaccine.

Musk was responding to an X post about how Dr. Helmut Sterz, Pfizer’s former chief toxicologist, admitted last month during a German COVID-19 Inquiry that an estimated 60,000 people have died in Germany from Pfizer’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, Comirnaty.

According to Sterz, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, Germany’s regulatory and research institute for vaccines and biomedicines, has received 2,133 reports of death following Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

He said, “These spontaneous reports likely have a high number of unreported cases due to underreporting. The true number is therefore much higher.”

“In the U.S., it is assumed that there is an underreporting factor of 30 by which the registered cases would have to be multiplied. For Germany, this would correspond to 60,000 deaths from the vaccination,” Sterz said.

Sterz told the German commissioners that Pfizer’s post-marketing report mentioned 1,200 suspected deaths within just two months of the shot’s approval.

“At that point, Comirnaty should have been withdrawn from the market,” Sterz said.

Pfizer skipped key safety studies due to ‘time constraints’

Sterz also testified that “due to time constraints,” Pfizer didn’t conduct vital safety checks on its COVID-19 vaccine before rolling it out to the public. For instance, the vaccine maker skipped carcinogenicity studies that would have examined whether the shots had cancer-causing properties.

Pfizer also failed to study the vaccine’s impact on pregnancy.

Sterz called for a new and independent scientific review of the COVID-19 vaccines’ long-term effects. “We need proper independent safety studies to understand what really happened. Without full transparency, people will not trust the conclusions,” he said, according to GB News.

He said the high number of negative side effects associated with the vaccines warrants pausing them, and other vaccines that use similar technology, until independent studies show they are safe.

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Elon Musk Is a No-Show for Questioning in French Court Hearing Into X Social Media Platform and Grok Chatbot

France is scrambling to censor free-speech X.

We have been reporting on how France is waging lawfare against free-speech X platform, and how US authorities refused to aid in the nefarious lawsuit, as you can read in DOJ Refuses Cooperation, Warns France to Back Off Censorship Probe Targeting X Platform.

Today (20), it arose that the platform owner, tech billionaire Elon Musk did not appear at a summons for questioning in a French probe into X and its AI ‌chatbot, Grok.

The investigation began looking into alleged abuse of algorithms and fraudulent data extraction, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.

Reuters reported:

“The investigation, which has been expanded in past months to include suspected complicity in the distribution of child pornography and the creation of sexual deepfakes by Grok, has added to strains in relations between the U.S. and Europe over Big ​Tech and free speech.”

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Elon Musk’s father insists Epstein is alive and ‘it’s absurd to think he is dead’

Elon Musk‘s father has claimed convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is still alive, insisting it is ‘absurd’ to believe he died in jail.

Errol Musk, 79, made the remarks during a primetime interview on Russian state television controlled by Vladimir Putin, where he repeated conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein’s death.

Epstein was found dead in his prison cell on August 10, 2019, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, in a case that fuelled widespread speculation.

His death was officially ruled a suicide by New York City’s chief medical examiner, though conspiracy theories have persisted in the years since.

‘In my opinion, it’s absurd to think that he is dead. It’s ridiculous,’ he said.

This prompted groans from the studio audience, but he went on: ‘The prison guards have come out to say that he was swapped out the night before he was supposed to commit suicide.

‘The cameras were off at the wrong time, the guards went to sleep.

‘It’s absolutely absurd to think that this man is [dead]. He’s alive and well.’

Errol is on a visit to Russia.

He said last year that ‘as a family… we are a little bit in awe of Mr. Putin’.

At the weekend, Errol was seen at a Moscow cathedral for a Russian Orthodox Easter midnight service attended by the Kremlin dictator.

The Russian president casually walked into the midnight cathedral service, apparently wearing heavy makeup, and looking weary and tired.

Putin’s annual appearance at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral near the Kremlin, to mark Orthodox Easter, came soon after he called a 32-hour ceasefire in the war – which his own troops violated.

The Easter ceasefire was broken by Russia after it attacked Ukrainian positions with drones on Saturday.

Ukraine’s military command reported nearly 470 Russian violations of the truce.

In a festive message at the Sunday service, Putin said: ‘The great holiday of Easter fills the hearts of millions of people with sincere joy, faith in the all-conquering power of life, in the triumph of love, goodness, and justice, and unites us around centuries-old paternal traditions, undeniable spiritual, moral values, and ideals.’

As his troops broke his declared ceasefire, he praised ‘our heroes – the participants and veterans of the special military operation’.

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Musk’s xAI Sues Colorado Over AI Law, Saying It Forces Developers to Back State’s Views

An artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk filed a lawsuit on April 9 over a Colorado law it claims makes AI developers endorse “Colorado’s views on diversity, equity, and inclusion or face significant compliance costs and civil fines.”

xAI, whose flagship product is the chatbot Grok, named Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser as the defendant. The lawsuit states that the law’s provisions “prohibit developers of AI systems from producing speech that the State of Colorado dislikes, while compelling them to conform their speech to a State-enforced orthodoxy on controversial topics of great public concern.” The lawsuit says the Colorado law violates the First Amendment.

Weiser didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

The lawsuit questions the use of the term “algorithmic discrimination” in the law, calling it vague.

The text of the law defines it this way: “Algorithmic discrimination means any condition in which the use of an artificial intelligence system results in unlawful differential treatment or impact that disfavors an individual or group of individuals on the basis of their actual or perceived age, color, disability, ethnicity, genetic information, limited proficiency in the English language, national origin, race, religion, reproductive health, sex, veteran status, or other classification protected under the laws of this state or federal law.”

The bill, SB24-205, was introduced in April 2024, passed the next month, and will take effect on June 30, 2026.

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