Elon Musk’s courtroom battle with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman came to an abrupt end on Monday after a jury unanimously found that Musk’s claims that Altman was “stealing a charity” fell outside of the legal statute of limitations to be tried in court.
Musk’s proposed case is linked to his past as a co-founder of OpenAI, which was founded as a nonprofit in 2015. Musk alleged that Altman used his financial resources to expand OpenAI’s operations before turning the organization into a commercial entity.
Musk’s suit said that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman were in violation of a founding agreement (PDF) that states the corporation’s technology “will benefit the public and [OpenAI] will seek to open source technology for the public benefit when applicable. [OpenAI] is not organized for the private gain of any person.”
Microsoft was also named as a defendant in the suit, with Musk alleging that the company’s 2019 investment and continued interest in OpenAI constituted aiding and abetting the startup in its breach of the founding agreement.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
Musk’s filing sought tens of billions of dollars in compensation to be extracted from OpenAI’s for-profit operations and redistributed to the “OpenAI nonprofit mission.” He also hoped that the court would rule in favor of removing Altman and Brockman from their executive positions in the company.
The case was filed in a federal court in Oakland, California, and presided over by US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who accepted the advisory jury’s unanimous decision, reached after three weeks of evidence and just 2 hours of deliberation.
Ruling in Altman’s favor, the court found that “claims of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment are dismissed as untimely.” Musk would have had to file the suit within three years of leaving OpenAI for his claims to be heard. All claims against Altman, Brockman and Microsoft have been dismissed. Musk’s lead counsel, Steven Molo, reserved the billionaire’s right to appeal the decision.
Musk and Altman continue to maneuver their AI companies into the public market. Altman’s win clears the way for OpenAI’s prospective trillion-dollar stock market initial public offering. Musk’s SpaceX, which merged with xAI earlier this year, filed for an IPO in April.
Representatives from OpenAI and the law firm MoloLamken, which represented Musk, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman won the lawsuit, where Musk sued the company for allegedly abandoning its nonprofit mission.
A fast-paced slugfest between tech billionaires
The richest man in the world and the frontrunner of the AI industry were once friends, but any pleasantries shared between Musk and Altman are squarely in the rearview mirror.
The breakneck three-week trial saw both men bring witnesses to the stand to spin narratives about each other, as personal testimonies and private messages were dragged into the spotlight.
Musk’s legal strategy largely focused on portraying Altman as amateurish and deceptive, bringing in ex-OpenAI cofounders and scientists to argue that Altman was not a trustworthy actor in his business dealings at OpenAI.
OpenAI’s former chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, was brought to the stand reiterating his claim that Altman “exhibits a consistent pattern of lying, undermining his execs and pitting his execs against each other.”
The company’s previous chief technical officer, Mira Murati, made a similar claim, saying Altman was frequently “saying one thing to one person and completely the opposite to another person.”
Altman’s legal team, on the other hand, presented evidence alleging that Musk had previously floated the idea of shifting OpenAI to a for-profit entity, so long as he could take the reins.
The barbs turned especially personal when Shivon Zilis — former OpenAI board member, current Neuralink executive and mother to four of Musk’s children — was accused of spying on OpenAI’s internal operations in order to report back to her partner.
OpenAI lawyers also argued that Musk’s suit was designed to kneecap a competitor to xAI, an AI company he founded in 2023.
The whirlwind courtroom drama culminated in Musk leaving the country to join President Donald Trump on a diplomatic trip to China, in defiance of Judge Gonzalez Rogers’ order that he remain present for the trial.
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