Elon Musk loses lawsuit against Altman, OpenAI over nonprofit claims

A US jury in California on Monday rejected Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, ending a bitter three-week court battle between the two tech billionaires, according to media reports.

Musk filed the suit against Altman and OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, in 2024, alleging that the artificial intelligence company violated what Musk claimed was a commitment to remain a nonprofit.

Microsoft, which invested in OpenAI as early as 2019, was also named as a defendant in the suit. Musk claimed the software giant "aided and abetted" the AI startup in its alleged breach of charitable trust, but the court also dismissed that claim.

Musk wanted the court to force OpenAI and Microsoft to give up as much as $134 billion in what he called "ill-gotten gains," remove Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman from leadership, and unwind the company’s 2025 restructuring that enabled the growth of its for-profit arm. Musk said in his lawsuit that any money should be returned to an OpenAI charity rather than to him personally.

Regardless of Musk's allegations, the jury ultimately found that the claims were filed outside the statute of limitations, reasoning that Musk had three years to sue Altman and OpenAI and did not file on time.

"There’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding," US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said in making the final ruling. The judge said she was prepared to dismiss Musk’s claims "on the spot."

Gonzalez Rogers agreed with the advisory jury’s determination that Altman and OpenAI were not liable and that "claims of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment are dismissed as untimely."

Musk helped start OpenAI in 2015 but left the board three years later. Critics of the lawsuit claimed Musk was envious of Altman, once a close friend, for transforming OpenAI into a lucrative AI business.

Musk alleged that OpenAI executives "stole a charity" and that Altman and Brockman abandoned OpenAI’s founding charitable mission in pursuit of personal profit. Musk testified that he gave roughly $38 million to OpenAI on the understanding that it would develop AI "for the benefit of humanity," not enrich any one person.

Musk, however, started his own competing AI lab, xAI, in 2023, which is now part of SpaceX. OpenAI’s lawyers portrayed the lawsuit as Musk’s attempt to target a rival AI company after he failed to gain control of it.

The jury's verdict comes at a critical time for both Altman and Musk as the two tech executives push their respective companies toward public stock market offerings expected to be among the largest in recent years.

In late March, OpenAI raised $122 billion at a valuation of more than $850 billion.

Musk is expected to begin meeting with investors soon ahead of an initial public offering for SpaceX, which was valued at $1.25 trillion after merging with xAI in February. SpaceX confidentially filed for an IPO in April and could make its prospectus public this week.

Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, told reporters that his client reserved the right to appeal Monday's verdict.