"The figure comes from expert witness C. Paul Wazzan, a financial economist who has been deposed nearly 100 times and testified at trial more than a dozen times in complex commercial litigation cases. Wazzan, who specializes in valuation and damages calculations in high-stakes disputes, determined that Musk is entitled to a hefty portion of OpenAI's current $500 billion valuation based on his $38 million seed donation when he co-founded the startup in 2015. (If you're wondering, that would mean a 3,500-fold return on Musk's investment.)"
"Wazzan's analysis combines Musk's initial financial contributions with the technical know-how and business contributions he offered to OpenAI's early team, calculating wrongful gains of $65.5 billion to $109.4 billion for OpenAI and $13.3 billion to $25.1 billion for Microsoft. Musk's legal team argues he should be compensated as an early startup investor who sees returns "many orders of magnitude greater" than his initial investment. But the sheer scale of the damages demand underscores that this legal battle isn't really about the money."
Elon Musk is demanding $79 billion to $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging fraud tied to OpenAI abandoning its nonprofit mission. Expert witness C. Paul Wazzan valued Musk's early $38 million seed contribution and nonfinancial contributions against OpenAI's current $500 billion valuation, producing wrongful-gain ranges of $65.5 billion to $109.4 billion for OpenAI and $13.3 billion to $25.1 billion for Microsoft. Musk's legal team frames the claim as compensation for outsized startup returns. Musk's personal fortune near $700 billion and a separate $1 trillion Tesla pay approval make any payout relatively small by comparison.
Read at TechCrunch
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