Jury selection in Musk v. Altman: ‘People don’t like him’

On Monday, the courtroom battle between Elon Musk and Sam Altman over alleged broken promises at OpenAI started, as usual, with jury selection. The only tricky part? A lot of the prospective jurors already have an opinion about Elon Musk, and it’s not a good one.

The Verge reporter Elizabeth Lopatto, who was there at the courthouse, quoted statements from some of the juror questionnaires:

“Elon Musk is a greedy, racist, homophobic piece of garbage.”

“Elon Musk is a world-class jerk.”

“I very much dislike Tesla. As a woman of color, I am very aware of the damaging statements and actions Elon Musk has enacted and been a part of.”

Musk’s lawyers took issue with some of the people who said they already don’t like Musk and tried to get them struck from the pool of possible jurors for cause. However, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said, “The reality is that people don’t like him… Many people don’t like him, but that doesn’t mean that Americans nevertheless can’t have integrity for the judicial process.” While the responses above may not reflect the opinions of the nine people selected for the jury, the chosen group includes some who said they may not like Musk or have negative opinions about AI technology, but wouldn’t let that interfere with how they see the facts of the case.