A jury in Oakland, California, ruled on Monday that Elon Musk had delayed too long in filing a lawsuit against OpenAI and its leadership. After approximately 90 minutes of deliberation, it concluded that the lawsuit was time-barred. Although the jury's verdict was only advisory, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers stated that she agreed with it and adopted the jury's finding as her own.
Musk, who was instrumental in founding OpenAI and initially funded it with $38 million, filed the lawsuit in February 2024. In it, he accused CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman of “stealing charity” and enriching themselves unjustly by transitioning the company to a structure that included a for-profit arm. “I was a fool. I gave them free money to build a startup,” Musk said in court.
Musk demanded that the court force OpenAI to return over $130 billion to its non-profit arm, remove Altman and Brockman from their leadership positions, and reverse the company's restructuring. However, according to the jury, Musk was aware of the behavior he described in the lawsuit as early as 2021.
OpenAI's legal representatives argued that the company's mission had not changed and that it was still managed by the board of its non-profit foundation. They claimed that Musk filed the lawsuit only after he founded his own rival company, xAI, in 2023, and called his move a “hypocritical attempt to sabotage a competitor.” According to them, Musk had himself previously urged the creation of a for-profit entity to compete with Google and had attempted to gain control over it.
Microsoft was named in the lawsuit as a co-defendant for “aiding and abetting” Musk's claims through its investments in OpenAI. A Microsoft spokesperson welcomed the jury's decision. Musk's lead attorney, Marc Toberoff, announced at a press conference after the verdict that they intend to appeal. “At its core, this is a travesty,” Toberoff declared.
The trial revealed a wealth of internal information, including private emails, text messages, and meeting notes. Witnesses included OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and Shivon Zilis, a manager at Musk's companies and the mother of four of his children.