Elon Musk just lost another lawsuit. Will he keep fighting?

"I don't see him stopping," said Dorothy Lund, a lawyer and law professor at Columbia Law School. "It seems like there is no one who has been able to put real consequences on him or his actions."

A recent fine of $1.5m (£1.1m) from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over his failure to disclose his initial accumulation of Twitter stock, for instance, is insignificant for someone like Musk.

When his multi-billion-dollar pay package for Tesla was invalidated by a judge in December 2024, Musk simply reincorporated the entire company in Texas and got a potentially even bigger pay package approved by shareholders.

"He does what he wants and sometimes gets a slap on the wrist, so why would he change?" Lund said.

Musk has a "larger than life personality", Ghosh added, which makes him different from many business leaders.

He seemed to decide that the right time to get SpaceX onto the public stock market was during his high-profile trial against Altman, a mentee-turned-rival-turned-public enemy. That alone sets him apart from most people in business.

When executives have a company that is about to go public, they typically enter into what's known as a "quiet period".

It is a period of time, mandated by the SEC, during which leaders of a business actively preparing to list on a public stock exchange are not supposed to make certain statements. Many chief executives say as little as possible during a quiet period, as even general statements on a company's growth are usually prohibited.

Lund noted that there are not many people who compare to Musk in terms of his ability, and apparent desire, to keep fighting in court and in public after so many dings.

"He is not afraid of public opinion, he's not afraid of taking big swings," Lund said. She noted that kind of disregard for risk is "valuable in entrepreneurs", But the courtroom is not a boardroom.

Lund noted that even notoriously aggressive corporate figures like Carl Icahn, the famed "corporate raider" who inspired the greed-driven character of Gordon Gecko in the film Wall Street, did not seem to have the brazenness of Musk.

"If and when this will blow up for him, I don't know," Lund said.

The only analogous public figure for her is President Donald Trump, who is notorious for making seemingly off-the-cuff remarks in public and taking legal action against perceived foes.

"Musk is a singular individual," Lund said, "but negative things never seem to stick to either of them."