A jury reached a decision on Monday on Elon Musk’s blockbuster lawsuit against OpenAI, finding that the billionaire brought his suit after the statute of limitations expired.
Mr. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with Sam Altman and other artificial intelligence researchers. But that relationship soured, and he left the company. He sued OpenAI in 2024 and later added Microsoft to the suit, too.
Here’s what to know:
What is the case about?
OpenAI was established in 2015 as a nonprofit, but Mr. Musk left the start-up in early 2018 after a power struggle. OpenAI’s leadership then attached the A.I. lab to a for-profit venture and started seeking funding from investors like Microsoft.
OpenAI is now worth an estimated $730 billion as a for-profit company overseen by the original nonprofit, and is expected to go public as soon as this year in one of the biggest initial offerings in history.
Mr. Musk sued the start-up, its founders and Microsoft in 2024, arguing that OpenAI abandoned its humanitarian mission in favor of monetary gain. He asked for more than $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, OpenAI’s primary partner. He also sought to remove Mr. Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, from the company’s board and to unravel the commercial company that OpenAI created last year to oversee technology like ChatGPT.
What did Mr. Musk argue?
Mr. Musk’s legal team built its case around a simple concept: “It is not OK to steal a charity,” as the billionaire said during his first day on the stand.
How did OpenAI defend itself?
OpenAI’s lawyers pointed to texts, emails and conversations in which Mr. Musk pushed the start-up to seek more funding and suggested the idea of it becoming a for-profit company.
They also pointed to the timing of the lawsuit, which was filed years after Microsoft first invested in OpenAI and after Mr. Musk founded his own A.I. start-up, xAI.
Who testified?
A string of tech luminaries took the stand over the past three weeks, including Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella; OpenAI’s president, Greg Brockman; and Shivon Zilis, who served on the OpenAI board of directors, worked closely with Mr. Musk for years and is the mother of four of his children. Mr. Musk and Mr. Altman testified, too.
What happens next?
The judge accepted the jury’s decision and dismissed Mr. Musk’s claim “on the spot,” but some of the claims in the suit still remain.
One last part of the trial was unresolved. When Mr. Musk added Microsoft to his suit in November of 2024, he claimed that two Microsoft board members had undermined antitrust laws because they were also on the board of OpenAI. He also claimed that OpenAI used anticompetitive practices as it raised money for its for-profit venture.
These claims are still outstanding and were slated for a potential second stage of the trial. The judge discussed the claims with the lawyers on Monday. She has previously said that a second stage of the trial is unlikely to happen, because there is plenty of competition in the A.I. market.
Mr. Musk’s lawyers said on Monday that he planned to appeal.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied the suit’s claims.)
