The US Supreme Court questions the NVIDIA case, allowing a shareholder suit to proceed

United States Supreme Court dismissed an NVIDIA case it previously agreed to hear as “unintentionally granted.” In other words, “Oops, we never should have taken this one.” The decision allows most of the lawsuit filed by shareholders against the chip maker to continue.

An investment firm and a pension fund filed the suit against NVIDIA, claiming the company misled investors about its reliance on the crypto mining industry. The lawsuit alleges that NVIDIA previously hid its reliance on the market a crash in 2018 that lowered the chipmaker’s stock prices. (For better or for worse, cryptocurrency has returned, and Bitcoin recently passed the $100,000 plateau for the first time.)

The court’s unanimous rejection reflected its apparent reluctance to hear the complex technicalities of the case. “The writ of certiorari is dismissed as unconscionably granted” is all the decision said. That language was identical to a remarkably similar one dismissal in a case SCOTUS heard last month against Meta, which also accused it of defrauding investors.

Washington Post reports that the justices offered hints for the NVIDIA dismissal when they heard arguments in mid-November. “It’s becoming less and less clear why we took this case … and … why you should win it,” Justice Elena Kagan said. New York Times says justices across the ideological spectrum sounded frustrated by the arguments. “This is a very technical subject,” Justice Samuel Alito said at one point. “It just seems to me that you’re asking us to engage in a kind of analysis that we’re not very good at and didn’t expect when we took this case,” Kagan said.

Like AI’s thorny and ultra high stakes legal and ethical issues loom largewe can take solace in the fact that the highest court of the world’s most powerful nation sounds… completely uninterested in delving into the often head-spinning technicalities of Big Tech. At least the stakes are much lower in this case, and it only affects the finances of one insanely rich corporation and a group of (probably rich) Wall Street investors.