Elon Musk Loses OpenAI Trial — Jury Dismisses Claims Against Sam Altman in Under Two Hours

A jury in Oakland, California has ruled against Elon Musk in his high-profile lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, ending a three-week trial with a swift verdict that took less than two hours of deliberations. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the advisory jury's determination that Altman and OpenAI were not liable, dismissing Musk's claims of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment as filed outside the statute of limitations. "There's a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury's finding," the judge said in closing remarks. She added she was prepared to dismiss Musk's claims "on the spot." Musk's attorney Steven Molo reserved his client's right to appeal. What the lawsuit was about Musk sued Altman and OpenAI in 2024, alleging that OpenAI's leadership violated the company's founding commitment to remain a nonprofit dedicated to developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. Musk was one of OpenAI's co-founders in 2015 and testified that he contributed roughly $38 million to the organization on the understanding that it would not enrich any one individual. He left the board three years after founding the company. Microsoft, which invested in OpenAI as early as 2019, was also named as a defendant, with Musk alleging the software giant aided and abetted OpenAI in its alleged breach of charitable trust. The court dismissed the claim against Microsoft as well. Musk's legal team had sought a sweeping set of remedies — asking the court to force OpenAI and Microsoft to surrender as much as $134 billion in what they characterized as ill-gotten gains, remove Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman from their leadership roles, and unwind the company's 2025 restructuring that enabled the growth of its for-profit arm. Musk said any recovered funds should be returned to the OpenAI charity rather than to himself personally. Why the jury sided with OpenAI The jury's decision turned not on the substance of Musk's charitable trust claims but on timing. The jury found that Musk had three years from the point he was aware of the alleged wrongdoing to file suit, and that he had not done so within that window. The statute of limitations ruling effectively short-circuited a full examination of the core charitable trust argument. OpenAI's lawyers had argued throughout the trial that Musk's donations to the organization carried no legal restrictions, and that restructuring the business as a for-profit entity was the only viable way to compete in an enormously capital-intensive race against Google DeepMind and other AI rivals. They also presented evidence that Musk himself had floated a for-profit structure for OpenAI — contingent on him retaining personal control — and had at one point pushed for the company to be folded into Tesla. OpenAI's legal team portrayed the lawsuit as a competitive attack on a rival Musk failed to control, filed after he had launched his own competing AI lab, xAI, in 2023. High-profile testimony throughout the three-week trial The trial drew significant public attention given the prominence of the figures involved. Testimony was heard from Altman, Brockman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Musk himself during the three weeks of proceedings in downtown Oakland. Counsel for OpenAI and Microsoft celebrated with hugs in the courtroom as the verdict was delivered. The verdict's timing: SpaceX IPO imminent The ruling arrives at a particularly consequential moment for both Musk and Altman. OpenAI raised $122 billion at a valuation of over $850 billion in late March and is racing to advance its AI models and expand its consumer and enterprise businesses while competing with Anthropic and others in the enterprise AI market. Musk, meanwhile, is expected to begin meeting with investors imminently ahead of a SpaceX IPO. SpaceX — which merged with xAI in February and was valued at $1.25 trillion following that transaction — confidentially filed its IPO prospectus in April, with the public filing expected as soon as this week. The resolution of the OpenAI lawsuit removes one significant legal overhang from Musk's public market debut, even as his team prepares an appeal.