The 12-person jury seated in the landmark breach-of-contract lawsuit between Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been instructed to carefully review evidence to decide which tech executive's messianic self-image is legally binding.
SAN FRANCISCO — Following three weeks of grueling testimony, the judge presiding over the high-stakes legal battle between Elon Musk and Sam Altman formally instructed the jury on Tuesday to determine exactly which billionaire's belief that he alone can save humanity is supported by the preponderance of the evidence.
Superior Court Judge Ethan Chou reminded the 12 jurors that they must set aside any personal biases and focus strictly on the legal merits of the case, specifically whether OpenAI's transition to a capped-profit structure legally infringes upon Musk's exclusive right to act as the sole architect of human salvation.
Throughout the trial, Musk's legal team has argued that Altman breached a foundational 2015 agreement by commercializing Artificial General Intelligence without first consulting Musk on how to properly integrate the technology into his broader, multi-planetary science fiction narrative. Conversely, defense attorneys for OpenAI maintain that Altman's serene, quietly terrifying demeanor proves he is the rightful shepherd of the digital superintelligence that will eventually render the court system obsolete.
The core question for these jurors is not whether these men are building a machine god, but whether the machine god's corporate governance structure violates section 16600 of the California Business and Professions Code.
Jurors spent much of Tuesday morning reviewing key exhibits, which reportedly include a 400-page binder of 3:00 a.m. text messages in which both men argue over who understood the underlying themes of Isaac Asimov novels better, as well as a highly redacted spreadsheet calculating the exact monetary value of the human soul.
At press time, the jury of local dental hygienists, substitute teachers, and retail managers—each receiving $15 a day for their civic service—had requested clarification from the judge on whether they were allowed to find both men legally liable for being extremely annoying.