Elon Musk wants a staggering $79 billion to $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging the AI company defrauded him by ditching its nonprofit mission, Bloomberg first reported. The figure comes from expert witness C. Paul Wazzan, a financial economist whose biography says he has been deposed nearly 100 times and confirmed at trial more than a dozen times in complex business litigation cases.
Wazzan, which specializes in valuations and damage calculations in high-stakes disputes, determined that Musk is entitled to a sizable portion of OpenAI’s current $500 billion valuation based on his initial donation of $38 million when he co-founded the startup in 2015. (If you’re wondering, that would mean a 3,500x return on Musk’s investment.)
Wazzan’s analysis combines Musk’s initial financial contributions with the technical expertise and business contributions he offered to the first OpenAI team, estimating illicit profits of between $65.5 billion and $109.4 billion for OpenAI and between $13.3 billion and $25.1 billion for Microsoft, which today owns a 27% chunk of the company.
Musk’s legal team should again be compensated as an initial investor who sees returns “many orders of magnitude greater” than their initial investment. But the magnitude of the damages claim underscores that this legal battle is not really about money.
Musk’s personal fortune is currently around $700 billion, making him by far the richest person in the world. As reported by Reuters recently noticedHis wealth now surpasses that of Google co-founder Larry Page, the second-richest person in the world, by a staggering $500 billion, according to the Forbes billionaires list. In November, Tesla shareholders separately approved a $1 billion pay package for Musk, the largest corporate pay package in history.
In this context, even a $134 billion payout from OpenAI would represent a relatively modest addition to Musk’s wealth, likely reinforcing those at OpenAI who characterize the lawsuit as part of an “ongoing pattern of harassment” rather than a legitimate financial grievance. OpenAI now supposedly sent a letter on Thursday to investors and other business partners, warning that Musk will make “deliberately outlandish and striking claims” as his lawsuit against the company goes to trial in April. The case will be heard in Oakland, California, about 15 miles east of San Francisco.
