Personal and business legal affairs of Elon Musk

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The personal and business legal affairs of Elon Musk encompass the legal cases involving businessman Elon Musk as the plaintiff, defendant, or concerning his companies.

Contents

Plaintiff cases

OpenAI principles lawsuit

In March 2024, Musk sued OpenAI, claiming the company violated its principles. [1] Musk withdrew his lawsuit in June. [2]

Defendant cases

Dogecoin lawsuit

In June 2022, Musk, SpaceX, and Tesla were sued for allegedly inflating the price of Dogecoin. [3]

False flag lawsuit

In October 2023, a Jewish man sued Musk, accusing him of falsely claiming that he was a neo-Nazi. [4]

Severance pay

Former Twitter executives sued Musk and X Corp. for US$128 million in unpaid severance in March 2024. In the filing, the plaintiffs alleged that Musk had acted in revenge against them personally. [5]

Business cases

Tesla

Drug use

In May 2024, a Tesla shareholder added a complaint to an existing lawsuit by accusing Musk's alleged illicit drug use of jeopardizing Tesla's performance. [6]

Musk's pay package

In January 2024, Musk's $55 billion USD pay package was voided from Tesla following a lawsuit brought by a shareholder. [7]

Autopilot litigation

Tesla Autopilot is the subject of six lawsuits in Florida, California, and Texas, alleging that the service failed to prevent crashes, including in fatal accidents. [8]

X

Defamation

In May 2024, a federal judge dismissed X Corp.'s lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, citing a California law against strategic lawsuits against public participation. [9]

Other cases

Musk is funding Gina Carano's wrongful termination lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elon Musk</span> South African-born businessman (born 1971)

Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and investor known for his key roles in space company SpaceX and automotive company Tesla, Inc. Other involvements include ownership of X Corp., formerly Twitter, and his role in the founding of The Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink and OpenAI. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world; as of June 2024, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$210 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tesla, Inc.</span> American electric vehicle and clean energy company

Tesla, Inc. is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas, which designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar shingles, and related products and services. The company is also developing artificial intelligence and robotics products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Gensler</span> American banker (born 1957)

Gary S. Gensler is an American government official and former Goldman Sachs investment banker serving as the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Gensler previously led the Biden–Harris transition's Federal Reserve, Banking, and Securities Regulators agency review team. Prior to his appointment, he was professor of Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dogecoin</span> Cryptocurrency

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a joke, making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time. It is considered both the first "meme coin", and more specifically the first "dog coin". Despite its satirical nature, some consider it a legitimate investment prospect. Dogecoin features the face of Kabosu from the "doge" meme as its logo and namesake. It was introduced on December 6, 2013, and quickly developed its own online community, reaching a peak market capitalization of over US$85 billion on May 5, 2021. As of 2021, it is the sleeve sponsor of Watford Football Club.

Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP is an American law firm headquartered in San Diego, California. It is a plaintiffs law firm specializing in securities litigation and shareholder rights cases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tesla Energy</span> American solar energy generation and battery energy storage company

Tesla Energy Operations, Inc. is the clean energy division of Tesla, Inc. that develops, manufactures, sells and installs photovoltaic solar energy generation systems, battery energy storage products and other related products and services to residential, commercial and industrial customers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tesla Autopilot</span> Suite of advanced driver-assistance system features by Tesla

Tesla Autopilot is an advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) developed by Tesla that amounts to partial vehicle automation. Tesla provides "Base Autopilot" on all vehicles, which includes lane centering and traffic-aware cruise control. Owners may purchase an upgrade to "Enhanced Autopilot" (EA) which adds semi-autonomous navigation on limited access roadways, self-parking, and the ability to summon the car from a garage or parking spot. The company claims the features reduce accidents caused by driver negligence and fatigue from long-term driving. Collisions and deaths involving Tesla cars with Autopilot engaged have drawn the attention of the press and government agencies.

Tesla, Inc., an electric vehicle manufacturer and clean energy company founded in San Carlos, California in 2003 by American entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. The company is named after Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla. Tesla is the world's leading electric vehicle manufacturer, and, as of the end of 2021, Tesla's cumulative global vehicle sales totaled 2.3 million units.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gigafactory New York</span> Tesla, Inc. factory in Buffalo, New York

Gigafactory New York is factory leased by Tesla, Inc. in the Riverbend section of Buffalo, New York. The factory, owned by the State of New York, was built on brownfield land remediated from a former steel mill. Construction of the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2017. It produces the Tesla Solar Roof and Tesla Superchargers. Additionally, Tesla employs data analysts for its Autopilot software at the site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Spiro</span> American attorney (born 1982/83)

Alexander Benjamin Spiro is an American attorney. He is a partner at the New York office of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TSLAQ</span> Group of people who criticize Tesla, Inc.

TSLAQ is a loose, international collective of largely anonymous short-sellers, skeptics, and researchers who openly criticize Tesla, Inc. and its CEO Elon Musk. The group primarily organizes on social media, often using the $TSLAQ cashtag, and on Reddit to coordinate efforts and share news, opinions, and analysis about the company and its stock. Edward Niedermeyer, in his book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors (2019), pinpoints the July 2018 doxxing of Twitter user Lawrence Fossi, a Seeking Alpha writer and Tesla short seller operating under the pseudonym Montana Skeptic, as the catalyst for the formation of TSLAQ.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PlainSite</span> Website dedicated to legal data transparency advocacy

PlainSite is a US based website dedicated to legal data transparency advocacy developed in conjunction by Think Computer Corporation and the charitable organization Think Computer Foundation. PlainSite provides both free and paid access to legal documents and information about the US legal system on a variety of subjects and caselaw. The website previously collected legal documents via the Free Law Project's RECAP archive until the archive adopted a fee-based approach.

Elon Musk is the CEO or owner of multiple companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp, and has expressed many views on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from politics to science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of Tesla, Inc.</span> Systemic criticism of Tesla, Inc. and its products and leadership

Tesla, Inc. has been criticized for its cars, workplace culture, business practices, and occupational safety. Many of the criticisms are also directed toward Elon Musk, the company's CEO and Product Architect. Critics have also accused Tesla of deceptive marketing, unfulfilled promises, and fraud. The company is currently facing criminal and civil investigations into its self-driving claims. Critics have highlighted Tesla's downplaying of issues, and Tesla's alleged retaliation against several whistleblowers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lex Fridman</span> Russian-American scientist and podcast host (born 1983)

Lex Fridman is a Russian-American computer scientist and podcaster. Since 2018 he has hosted the Lex Fridman Podcast, where he interviews notable figures from various fields such as science, technology, sports, and politics.

Business magnate Elon Musk initiated an acquisition of American social media company Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022, and concluded it on October 28, 2022. Musk stated he intended to buy Twitter to build X, an everything app he had been developing since 2018 to mimic the Chinese app WeChat. Musk had begun buying shares of the company in January 2022, becoming its largest shareholder by April with a 9.1 percent ownership stake. Twitter invited Musk to join its board of directors, an offer he initially accepted before declining. On April 14, Musk made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company, to which Twitter's board responded with a "poison pill" strategy to resist a hostile takeover before unanimously accepting Musk's buyout offer of $44 billion on April 25. Musk stated that he planned to introduce new features to the platform, make its algorithms open-source, combat spambot accounts, and promote free speech.

X Corp. is an American technology company established by Elon Musk in 2023 as the successor to Twitter, Inc. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of X Holdings Corp., which is itself mostly owned by Musk. The company owns the social networking service X, a successor to Twitter, and has announced plans to use it as a base for other offerings.

Jared John Birchall is an American business executive and a former banker. He is the chief executive officer of neurotechnology company Neuralink and the wealth manager of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk since 2016. As an adviser and right-hand man for Musk, Birchall holds executive or administrative positions in other endeavors of his including the Boring Company, Musk Foundation, xAI, and managing his family office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wealth of Elon Musk</span> Overview of the wealth of Elon Musk

Elon Musk made $175.8 million when PayPal was sold to eBay in October 2002. He was first listed on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2012, with a net worth of $2 billion. He is the founder, chairman, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, product architect, and former chairman of Tesla, Inc.; owner, executive chairman, and CTO of X Corp.; founder of the Boring Company and xAI; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the Musk Foundation. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$191 billion as of April 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $182.6 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.

References

  1. Satariano, Adam; Metz, Cade; Mickle, Tripp (March 1, 2024). "Elon Musk Sues OpenAI and Sam Altman for Violating the Company's Principles". The New York Times . Retrieved June 8, 2024.
  2. "Elon Musk drops lawsuit against OpenAI".
  3. Van Voris, Bob (June 16, 2022). "Musk, Tesla, SpaceX Are Sued for Alleged Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme". Bloomberg News . Retrieved June 8, 2024.
  4. Mekelburg, Madlin (October 3, 2023). "Elon Musk Sued for Defamation Over 'False Flag' Neo-Nazi Claim". Bloomberg News . Retrieved June 8, 2024.
  5. Kolodny, Lora (2024-03-04). "Former Twitter execs sue Musk and X for more than $128 million in severance". CNBC. Retrieved 2024-06-10.
  6. "Musk Faces Lawsuit for Drug Use, X Posts Under the Influence". news.bloomberglaw.com. Retrieved 2024-06-10.
  7. "Lawyers seek nearly $6 billion in Tesla stock after getting Musk pay package struck down". NBC News. 2024-03-02. Retrieved 2024-06-10.
  8. Nayak, Malathi (December 15, 2023). "Tesla Autopilot Recall Threatens Its Defense in Lawsuits Over Crashes". Bloomberg News . Retrieved June 8, 2024.
  9. Oremus, Will; Telford, Taylor (May 29, 2024). "Musk tried to 'punish' critics, judge rules, in tossing a lawsuit". The Washington Post . Retrieved June 8, 2024.
  10. Barnes, Brooks (February 6, 2024). "Elon Musk Is Funding Ex-'Mandalorian' Actress's Suit Against Disney". The New York Times . Retrieved June 8, 2024.