According to CCTV News, on May 18 local time, a federal jury in Oakland, California, handed down a ruling against Elon Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, tossing out his claims entirely.
The judge said the nine-person jury reached a unanimous decision after about two hours of deliberation, adding that “there’s plenty of evidence to back up the verdict.” What the jury found was that Musk filed his lawsuit way too late—so OpenAI isn’t on the hook for allegedly ditching its original “benefit humanity” mission.
The case kicked off on April 27 in California, with three weeks of courtroom drama over the core dispute. During testimony, the jury heard from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and even Musk himself.
Musk’s lawsuit claimed that OpenAI, Altman, and Brockman “tricked” him into donating $38 million, then secretly turned the original nonprofit into a for-profit machine, raking in tens of billions from Microsoft and other investors.
OpenAI fired back, arguing that shifting to a for-profit model was the only way to raise the massive funds needed to build artificial general intelligence (AGI). They also stressed that the OpenAI Foundation still holds governance rights over the public-benefit corporation created last year.
Musk’s side, on the other hand, hammered home that OpenAI’s success made its founders and early investors insanely rich—proving, they said, that profit motives have completely taken over the original public-good mission.
Brockman testified that he holds OpenAI stock worth nearly $30 billion. Former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever confirmed his own stake is around $7 billion. And Altman? He doesn’t directly own OpenAI equity, but he holds about $1.7 billion in nuclear fusion company Helion Energy and around $633 million in payment processor Stripe—both of which do business with OpenAI.
Microsoft’s CEO testified that the company’s return target on its OpenAI investment is $92 billion, and as of last October, the value of Microsoft’s stake had already hit $135 billion.
Musk’s lawyers painted Altman as a smooth-talking leader who can’t be trusted, repeatedly bringing up how OpenAI’s own board briefly fired him in 2023. “Even OpenAI’s board didn’t trust him,” they argued.
OpenAI’s lawyers fired back, calling Musk a “jealous competitor” who left OpenAI back in the day because he couldn’t get full control, and then started rival company xAI in 2023.
Altman and Brockman also took jabs at Musk’s leadership style, saying he’s super emotional and prone to angry outbursts when things don’t go his way.
Brockman even questioned Musk’s grasp of AI. “He knows rockets, he knows electric cars, but he never really understood AI—and I don’t think he gets it now.”
OpenAI’s key argument was that Musk knew all about the org’s commercial shift as early as 2021 and even complained about it in private messages—yet he didn’t sue until 2024, way past the three-year statute of limitations under U.S. law.
The jury bought that argument hook, line, and sinker. They dismissed all charges purely on timing grounds, without even getting into the meat of whether OpenAI actually abandoned its nonprofit roots.
After the verdict, Musk said he’ll appeal. He emphasized that the ruling was only about a procedural time issue, not the core facts, and he’s sticking to his claim that Altman and OpenAI’s leadership turned the organization into a “money-making tool” that betrayed its original public mission.
OpenAI’s lawyer, William Savitt, told reporters after the trial: “This verdict proves once again that this lawsuit was really just a hypocrite trying to hit a competitor with underhanded tactics, while covering up his long history of wrong predictions about OpenAI.”
Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest partner, welcomed the ruling, saying the facts were clear and they agree with the jury’s decision on the time limit. They promised to keep deepening their partnership with OpenAI.
Looking back at the history: In 2015, Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI as a nonprofit AI research org with a mission to make AI good for everyone. Musk put in $38 million as early seed funding.
In 2018, Musk left the board. Then OpenAI slowly built a for-profit structure, got cozy with Microsoft and other investors, and quickly became a global AI giant valued at hundreds of billions of dollars.
In 2024, Musk officially sued, accusing Altman and OpenAI’s management of breaking their nonprofit promise and tricking him into early investments. He demanded that OpenAI go back to being a nonprofit, open-source its tech, pay him $150 billion in damages, and bar Altman from leading the company.
U.S. media reported that this three-week trial was widely seen as a pivotal moment for OpenAI and the future of the whole AI industry—deciding how AI should be used and who should benefit from it.
The ruling also clears the path for OpenAI to potentially go public through an IPO, with a possible valuation of $1 trillion.
The verdict came just as Musk’s SpaceX is expected to release its IPO prospectus soon. On May 6, Musk announced that xAI would no longer be an independent company and would be fully merged into SpaceX as its AI product line.
But the legal battle between Musk and OpenAI is far from over.
Musk plans to appeal this ruling. He’s also accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of forming a monopoly through their partnership, claiming OpenAI told investors not to fund other AI startups, which hurt competitors like xAI. As part of the same case, a judge will meet to discuss next steps.
Plus, Musk’s xAI has filed a separate lawsuit accusing OpenAI of stealing trade secrets.
