Elon Musk’s greatest legacy will be as a provider of inane law school exam hypotheticals.

Yes, I know it’s a Verge link, but I found the explanation of the legal failings quite funny, and I think it’s “important” we keep track of which obscenely rich people are mad at each other so we can choose which of their kingdoms to be serfs in.

  •  cobra89   ( @cobra89@beehaw.org ) English
    6•4 months ago

    Did you read the sentence directly after? They never claimed that non-written contracts don’t exist, they said they are very hard to uphold in court, which is perfectly true:

    proving that an unwritten contract exists, what its terms are, and if they are enforceable is extraordinarily difficult, and courts do not like doing it, especially for ultra-sophisticated parties with a long history of dealing.

    •  tyler   ( @tyler@programming.dev ) English
      2•4 months ago

      Saying “they need to be written down” and then immediately negating that point is absolutely terrible writing. And even a casual contract, like OpenAI’s where they literally have stated in writing for years what their “contract” is, would not be hard to understand.

      Musk is a moron and this is clearly a ploy to gain some sort of control over OpenAI, but OpenAI is breaking what they said their goal was. I know that doesn’t mean there’s a contract there, but it has been written down numerous times what he’s claiming “the contract” is.

      •  sc_griffith   ( @sc_griffith@awful.systems ) English
        8•4 months ago

        Most importantly, contracts need to be written down — proving that an unwritten contract exists, what its terms are, and if they are enforceable is extraordinarily difficult, and courts do not like doing it, especially for ultra-sophisticated parties with a long history of dealing.

        this isn’t negating the point, it’s explaining the point: they need to be written down, here’s why. it’s like saying someone needs to train for a marathon to run one, because otherwise it will be very hard to avoid muscle damage. there’s no logical necessity but it makes sense as a practical claim