A U.S. jury on Monday unanimously ruled against Elon Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, finding the artificial intelligence (AI) company not liable on grounds that Musk had filed his case too late.
The jury in Oakland, California’s federal court deliberated for less than two hours before returning the verdict, which found that the statute of limitations had expired before Musk brought his claims. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers signalled the verdict was well-grounded, noting that the factual basis for the jury’s finding was strong.
“There’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding,” Judge Gonzalez Rogers said, adding that she had been prepared to dismiss the case outright.
Musk’s lawyer Steven Molo said his client reserved the right to appeal, though the judge indicated any such effort faced considerable obstacles given the factual nature of the statute of limitations finding.
In his 2024 lawsuit, Musk accused OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and company president Greg Brockman of manipulating him into donating $38 million to the organisation before attaching a for-profit structure to its original nonprofit and accepting tens of billions of dollars from Microsoft and other investors. Musk characterised the conduct as “stealing a charity.”
OpenAI was co-founded by Altman, Musk and others in 2015. Musk left its board in 2018, and the company established its for-profit arm the following year. The trial ran across 11 days of testimony and closing arguments in which the credibility of both Musk and Altman was repeatedly challenged. Each side accused the other of prioritising financial gain over the public interest.
OpenAI countered that Musk himself was motivated by commercial ambitions and had simply waited too long to claim the company breached its founding mission to build safe AI for the benefit of humanity.
Microsoft has invested more than $100 billion in its partnership with OpenAI, according to testimony heard during the trial. OpenAI is now preparing for a possible initial public offering (IPO) that analysts suggest could value the company at $1 trillion. It competes directly with AI companies including Anthropic and Musk’s own xAI, which has since merged with his space company SpaceX and is separately preparing for an IPO expected to exceed OpenAI’s in scale.
