A federal jury in Oakland, California, went against Elon Musk Monday in a case he brought against OpenAI, alleging the company’s leadership “stole a charity” when they converted it into a for-profit entity.
Through his lawsuit, Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, sought the removal of Sam Altman as CEO and company president Greg Brockman from their leadership roles, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Musk also wanted an “unwinding of the company’s recent conversion to a more traditional governance structure and damages worth more than $180 billion to be paid into an OpenAI foundation,” the news outlet added.
The jury found all of Musk’s claims fell outside the statute of limitations.
Fox Business reported that Musk left OpenAI in 2018 when he was unable to persuade the company’s leadership to merge with Tesla. OpenAI is the company behind ChatGPT.
“In his lawsuit, Musk accused OpenAI of violating its founding mission as a nonprofit to develop AI for the benefit of humanity when the startup created a for-profit entity in 2019,” Fox Business said.
A jury rejected Elon Musk’s claims that OpenAI under Sam Altman’s leadership betrayed its mission to benefit the public by morphing into a for-profit business, finding that he waited too long to bring his claims against the company pic.twitter.com/LuLUljsOPa
— PiQ (@PiQSuite) May 18, 2026
During closing arguments Thursday, Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, said of OpenAI’s Altman, “Five witnesses in this trial called him a liar under oath,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
“To succeed in AI, it turns out, all Mr. Musk can do is come to court,” OpenAI attorney William Savitt countered.
The Journal reported that Musk is “racing to hold a public offering for SpaceX, his rocket company, which merged with his struggling AI startup.”
Musk’s xAI is the company behind Grok, which is featured on the X social media platform.
The Journal said, “OpenAI is also seeking a public listing and is trying to regain momentum as rival Anthropic has emerged as a presumptive front-runner.”
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