OAKLAND, CA– A federal court on Monday dismissed claims brought against OpenAI and its top executives by Elon Musk, who accused them of betraying a shared vision to remain a nonprofit organization dedicated to guiding the development of artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
Musk, the world’s richest man, was a co-founder of OpenAI, which launched in 2015 and went on to create ChatGPT. After investing $38 million in its early years, Musk accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his senior vice president of turning to money-making tactics behind his back.
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The nine-person jury found that Musk waited too long to file his lawsuit and missed the statute of limitations deadline. The jury deliberated for only two hours.
The jury served in an advisory role, but Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the verdict on Monday as the court’s verdict and dismissed Musk’s claims.
The three-week trial in Oakland, California, highlighted the bitter dispute between the two Silicon Valley giants and the beginnings of OpenAI, which is now valued at $852 billion and headed toward one of the largest initial public offerings in history.
Altman and OpenAI claimed that there was never any promise to keep OpenAI a nonprofit forever. In fact, they said Musk knew about it and filed his lawsuit because he couldn’t unilaterally control the fast-growing AI developer.
Musk was seeking damages to be paid for the altruistic efforts of OpenAI’s philanthropic arm, as well as Altman’s removal from OpenAI’s board of directors. Musk’s decision to halt funding for the company contributed to a bitter rift between the two former allies. Musk says he was responding to deceptive behavior discovered by OpenAI’s board of directors when it fired Altman as CEO in 2023 before getting his job back days later.
Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The three-week trial witnessed testimony from Musk, Altman, and his chief aide, Greg Brockman, along with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and a large number of others in the orbit of the tech giants. “I think they’re going to try to make this lawsuit … very complicated, but actually very simple,” Musk told the jury in his first three days on the stand. “It is not acceptable to steal charity.”
Musk’s lawsuit alleged that in addition to “breach of charitable trust,” Altman and Brockman unjustly enriched themselves from windfall gains as the ChatGPT maker’s value rose. Brockman revealed during the trial that his stake in OpenAI is worth about $30 billion.
OpenAI has dismissed Musk’s claims as a baseless case aimed at undermining its rapid growth and promoting Musk’s own XAI, which it launched in 2023 as a competitor. During questioning, Musk occasionally clashed with OpenAI lawyer William Savitt.
“Your questions are not simple,” Musk once said. “It’s basically designed to trick me.”
Jurors also heard from witnesses, including former OpenAI board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, who spoke about the decision to fire Altman in 2023. They were booted from the board themselves when Altman returned to his position a few days later.
Altman and Musk both competed for the CEO position at OpenAI in its early years. In his testimony, Altman said he had concerns about Musk’s attempts to gain more control over OpenAI, which was aimed at building a better-than-human form of AI called artificial general intelligence.
“Part of the reason we launched OpenAI is because we didn’t believe that AGI could be under anyone’s control, no matter how good their intentions,” Altman said.
Near the end of his testimony, Altman said that before things got worse, he had high regard for Musk.
“I felt like he abandoned us, didn’t deliver on his promises, put the company in a very difficult position, jeopardized the mission, and didn’t really care about the things I thought he cared about,” Altman said. “It was very hurtful to me…that someone I respect so much would not acknowledge this and continue to publicly attack us.”
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