Elon Musk wants $79 billion to $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming the AI company cheated him by derailing the nonprofit’s mission, Bloomberg first reported. The figure comes from expert witness C. Paul Wazzan, a financial economist whose bio says he has been deposed nearly 100 times and testified in court more than a dozen times in complex commercial litigation cases.
Wazzan, who specializes in valuation and damages calculations in high-profile disputes, determined that Musk is entitled to a large part of OpenAI’s current $500 billion valuation based on a $38 million seed donation when he founded the startup in 2015.
Wazzan’s analysis combined Musk’s early financial contributions with the technical knowledge and business contributions he offered to OpenAI’s early team, calculating a misappropriation of $65.5 billion to $109.4 billion for OpenAI and $13.3 billion to $25.1 billion for Microsoft, which it now owns. 27% off the cut from the company.
Musk’s legal team said he should be compensated as an early startup investor who saw returns “many orders of magnitude greater” than his initial investment. But the sheer scale of the compensation claims underscores that this legal battle is not about money.
Musk’s personal wealth is currently around $700 billion, making him the richest person in the world. According to Reuters recently notedhis wealth now surpasses that of Google founder Larry Page, the second richest man in the world, with an astonishing $500 billion, according to the Forbes billionaires list. In November, Tesla shareholders approved a $1 trillion pay package for Musk, the company’s largest pay package in history.
Against this background, even the payment of $134 billion from OpenAI would represent a relatively modest addition to Musk’s wealth, perhaps reinforcing the people at OpenAI’s characterization of the lawsuit as part of a “persistent pattern of harassment” rather than a legitimate financial complaint. OpenAI has he reportedly sent a letter Thursday to investors and other business partners, warning that Musk will make “deliberately outlandish, attention-grabbing claims” as a lawsuit against the company in April. The case will be heard in Oakland, California, about 15 miles east of San Francisco.