DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,
In a unanimous verdict, the jury in Oakland, California federal court said Musk had brought his case too late.
Published On 18 May 2026
A US jury has ruled against Elon Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, finding the artificial intelligence company not liable to the world’s richest person for having allegedly strayed from its original mission to benefit humanity.
In a unanimous verdict on Monday, the jury in Oakland, California federal court said Musk had brought his case too late. The jury deliberated less than two hours.
The trial had widely been seen as a critical moment for the future of OpenAI and artificial intelligence generally, both in how it should be used and who should benefit from it.
Following the verdict, Musk’s 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.
“There’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding, which is why I was prepared to dismiss on the spot,” US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said.
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 accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his top deputy of shifting into a moneymaking mode behind his back.
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 toward potentially one of the largest initial public offerings in history.
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’t have unilateral control over the fast-growing AI developer.
Musk was seeking damages to be paid to the altruistic efforts of OpenAI’s charitable arm as well as Altman’s ouster from OpenAI’s board. Musk’s 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’s board picked up on when it fired Altman as CEO in 2023 before he got his job back days later.
