Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers's court has moved to jury-instruction stage in Musk v. Altman while Elon Musk is in Beijing. [1] The paper's Saturday account of Musk skipping his own closing arguments to fly to Beijing named the absence; Friday's piece on the advisory-jury mechanic that still hinges on the judge named the procedure. The brief is the calendar note that links them.

Musk skipped his own closing arguments to join the Trump-Xi delegation in Beijing. [2] Lead counsel Steven Molo apologized to the jury from the well of the court, an apology CNBC carried in its summary of Thursday's session. [1] The Northern District of California docket lists the case as active and entering charge conference. [3]

The calendar collision is the brief. A $150 billion claim against OpenAI's founding bargain has reached the part of trial procedure where a defendant's physical presence is normally treated as elementary respect for the jury. Musk chose the tarmac. The court chose to keep going.

That choice has costs Molo cannot fully absorb. Juries notice empty chairs, and advisory juries are paid to notice things judges then weigh. Whether Gonzalez Rogers credits the absence at all is her decision and will not appear in the verdict line. It will appear in the order that follows.

The Beijing trip, meanwhile, is its own legal exposure. Musk traveled with a sitting president on a summit whose Hormuz language failed within twenty-four hours. The advisory jury in Oakland did not get that briefing. It got an apology.

-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco