legalWednesday, June 17
Today's legal news is dominated by Elon Musk's legal battles on two fronts: the closing arguments in his OpenAI trial hinge on trust, while his other AI company xAI is being sued for running an illegal gas turbine plant. Meanwhile, Microsoft faces a class action over alleged AI hype, and a Tornado Cash retrial is set for fall.
The Musk-OpenAI trial is down to closing arguments, with jurors asked to decide if OpenAI's profit pivot was improper. Musk's lawyer zeroed in on Sam Altman's trustworthiness, questioning statements Altman made to Congress.
xAI allegedly built an unpermitted gas turbine plant to power its Colossus 2 data center, releasing hazardous pollutants. The Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice have sued, and the Justice Department is seeking to dismiss a related civil rights suit.
Microsoft is being sued by a pension fund claiming executives misled investors about Copilot's performance. Separately, the company is reportedly outsourcing cloud capacity to handle AI-driven demand spikes at GitHub.
A federal court set a fall retrial for Tornado Cash founder Roman Storm on money laundering and sanctions charges. The case continues to test the legal boundaries of decentralized crypto protocols.
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