In a unanimous verdict, the jury in Oakland, California federal court said Musk had brought his case \u2060too late.<\/p>\n
Published On 18 May 202618 May 2026<\/p>\n
A United States jury has ruled against Elon Musk in his lawsuit \u2060against OpenAI, finding the artificial \u2060intelligence (AI) company not liable to the world\u2019s richest person for having allegedly strayed from its original mission to benefit humanity.<\/p>\n
In a unanimous verdict on Monday, the jury in Oakland, California US federal court said Musk had brought his case \u2060too late. The jury deliberated for less than two hours.<\/p>\n
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The trial had widely been seen as a critical moment for the future of OpenAI and AI generally, both in how it should be used and who should benefit from it.<\/p>\n
Following the verdict, \u2060Musk\u2019s lawyer said he reserved the right to appeal, but the judge suggested he may have an uphill battle because whether the statute of limitations ran out before Musk sued was a factual issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury\u2019s finding, which is why I was prepared to dismiss on the spot,\u201d US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said.<\/p>\n
Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI, the company that launched in 2015 and went on to create ChatGPT. After investing $38m in its first years, Musk in 2024 accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his top deputy of shifting into a moneymaking mode behind his back.<\/p>\n
The trial that began April 27 shed light on the bitter falling-out between the two Silicon Valley titans and the beginnings of OpenAI, now a company valued at $852bn and moving towards potentially one of the largest initial public offerings in history.<\/p>\n
Altman and OpenAI claimed there was never a promise to keep OpenAI a nonprofit forever. In fact, they argued, Musk knew this and filed his lawsuit because he couldn\u2019t have unilateral control over the fast-growing AI developer.<\/p>\n
Repeated attacks<\/p>\n
Musk was seeking damages to be paid to the altruistic efforts of OpenAI\u2019s charitable arm as well as Altman\u2019s ouster from OpenAI\u2019s board. Musk\u2019s decision to stop funding the company contributed to a bitter rift between the former allies. Musk says he was responding to deceptive conduct that OpenAI\u2019s board picked up on when it\u00a0fired Altman\u00a0as CEO in 2023 before he\u00a0got his job back\u00a0days later.<\/p>\n
The verdict followed 11 days of testimony and arguments where Musk\u2019s and Altman\u2019s credibility came under repeated attack.<\/p>\n
Each side accused the other of being more interested in money than serving the public.<\/p>\n
In his closing argument, Musk\u2019s lawyer Steven Molo reminded jurors that several witnesses questioned Altman\u2019s candor or branded him a liar, and that Musk did not give an unqualified \u201cyes\u201d when asked during the trial if he was completely trustworthy.<\/p>\n
\u201cSam Altman\u2019s credibility is directly at issue,\u201d Molo said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t believe him, they cannot win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk accused OpenAI of wrongfully trying to enrich investors and insiders at the nonprofit\u2019s expense, and failing to prioritise AI\u2019s safety. He also contended that Microsoft knew all along that OpenAI cared more about money than being altruistic.<\/p>\n
OpenAI countered that it was Musk who saw dollar signs, and that he waited too long to claim OpenAI breached its founding agreement to build safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr Musk may have the Midas touch in some areas, but not in AI,\u201d William Savitt, a lawyer for OpenAI, said in his closing argument.<\/p>\n
OpenAI competes with AI companies such as Anthropic and xAI. Microsoft has spent more than $100bn on its partnership with OpenAI, a Microsoft executive testified.<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s xAI is now part of his space and rocket company SpaceX, which is preparing an IPO that could exceed OpenAI\u2019s in size.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a unanimous verdict, the jury in Oakland, California federal court said Musk had brought his case \u2060too…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,1686,49,48,13444,46,250,44,61,772,1690],"class_list":["post-678155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-business-and-economy","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-courts","tag-economy","tag-elon-musk","tag-news","tag-technology","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}