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The civil trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI has begun in a California court, with a nine-member jury selected despite concerns over bias against Musk. The case centres on claims that OpenAI abandoned its nonprofit mission for profit. Musk is seeking up to $150 billion in damages, while OpenAI has dismissed the lawsuit as baseless.

The high-stakes civil trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI has officially begun, with a nine-person jury seated at a federal courthouse in Oakland, California. Opening arguments are scheduled to be heard today in a case that could reshape the future of artificial intelligence, and upend the fortunes of two of the most valuable companies in the world.

The jury that 'doesn't like' Musk

Finding impartial jurors was always going to be the first hurdle. According to The Verge, most members of the jury pool expressed strong negative opinions about Musk during selection. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is overseeing the proceedings, acknowledged the challenge plainly. "The reality is people don't like him," she said at one point, though she expressed confidence that the jurors selected would respect the judicial process and decide the case on its merits.

Musk's legal team had requested that jurors who described him in questionnaires as 'greedy, racist and homophobic' and a 'world-class jerk' be dismissed, but Rogers denied that request. The judge called a jury pool roughly three times larger than is typical for a civil case, reflecting the scale of public opinion the court had to navigate.