A federal court on Monday dismissed claims filed by Elon Musk against OpenAI and its top executives, with the court saying Musk sued too late. The case, tried over three weeks in Oakland, California, ended with a nine-person jury finding that Musk missed a statutory deadline, delivering an advisory verdict that Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted as the court’s own.
Musk’s lawsuit was aimed at undoing what he described as a betrayal of a shared vision for OpenAI to remain a nonprofit dedicated to guiding artificial intelligence’s development for the good of humanity. Court records and testimony presented during the three-week trial centered on whether promises were made about OpenAI’s nonprofit status and whether those promises were followed.
The jury deliberated less than two hours before reaching its conclusion that Musk’s claims were time-barred. Rogers then dismissed Musk’s case, applying the jury’s advisory findings to resolve the matter in court.
During the trial, prosecutors’ central question for the jury became not only what Musk alleged about OpenAI’s direction, but also whether he filed within the legal deadline. OpenAI and its executives pushed back that there was never an agreement guaranteeing OpenAI would stay a nonprofit, and they argued that Musk had filed because he could not get unilateral control of the fast-growing AI developer.
Musk is the world’s richest man and a co-founder of OpenAI, a company that launched in 2015 and later created ChatGPT. According to the trial record summarized in testimony, Musk invested $38 million in OpenAI’s early years and later accused Altman and Brockman of enriching themselves “behind his back,” as the dispute grew into an intense business rivalry and personal split.
The break between the former allies was also tied to Musk’s decision to stop funding the company, according to the account presented at trial. Musk argued that his withdrawal responded to deceptive conduct he said the OpenAI board had picked up on when it fired Altman as CEO in 2023 before he got his job back days later.
Outside court after the verdict, OpenAI’s lawyer William Savitt told reporters that jurors decided the lawsuit was an “after-the-fact contrivance.” He said the jury also determined Musk’s effort amounted to trying to sabotage a competitor, and he pointed to “a long history of very bad predictions about what OpenAI has been and will become.”
Musk, for his part, posted on the social media platform X that he would appeal. He said the judge and jury did not weigh the merits of his case, characterizing the outcome as “a calendar technicality,” and he argued that Altman and Brockman “did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity,” while insisting the dispute turned on when the alleged enrichment occurred.
Musk’s attorney Steven Molo said Monday’s verdict did not end the feud. He compared the result to U.S. history moments such as the Siege of Charleston and the Battle of Bunker Hill, describing them as major losses for Americans in the short term but noting that they did not determine the overall war.
The trial also included testimony from Musk, Altman, and Greg Brockman, along with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and other figures from the tech orbit around both companies. Microsoft, which is an OpenAI investor and a co-defendant in Musk’s lawsuit, said it welcomed the decision and remains committed to working with OpenAI to “advance and scale AI for people and organizations around the world.”
Beyond the immediate statutory ruling, the courtroom testimony traced the early dynamics of OpenAI’s leadership. Altman testified that when OpenAI began, he and others did not believe “AGI could be under the control of any one person, no matter how good their intents are,” and he tied that stance to the original mission to build safe artificial general intelligence.
The trial also looked at Altman’s removal from the OpenAI board in 2023, before his return to the CEO role a few days later. Several witnesses, including former board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, testified about concerns including Altman’s truthfulness, as the dispute expanded into accusations and counteraccusations over governance and trust.
Near the end of his testimony, Altman said he had once thought highly of Musk, but that later events led him to feel Musk had abandoned the company, failed to follow through on promises, put the mission at risk, and continued publicly attacking OpenAI despite what Altman said was an expectation that Musk would acknowledge the issues.
Musk’s claims sought damages meant to support the altruistic efforts of OpenAI’s charitable arm, along with an effort to remove Altman from OpenAI’s board. The jury’s time-bar finding and the court’s dismissal mean those claims did not reach a final merits ruling in this case, but Musk said he plans to pursue an appeal.