Elon Musk has reacted after losing his massive lawsuit against ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, asserting that the court never ruled on the actual allegations he made against the company and its leadership. In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) following the verdict, the tech billionaire claimed the case was dismissed solely because of a legal timing issue and not because the jury rejected his accusations against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman.
Musk Claims Technicality, Not Merits
“Regarding the OpenAI case, the judge & jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality,” Musk wrote. He further alleged that Altman and Brockman had enriched themselves by moving OpenAI away from its original nonprofit mission. “There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is WHEN they did it!” he wrote in the post.
Appeal Plans Announced
In the same post, Elon Musk also revealed his intention to challenge the ruling in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. “I will be filing an appeal with the Ninth Circuit, because creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America,” he wrote. The billionaire concluded by defending OpenAI’s original purpose: “OpenAI was founded to benefit all of humanity.”
Court Ruling Details
A jury in Oakland, California, ruled that Musk had waited too long to file the lawsuit against OpenAI, Altman, Brockman, and Microsoft. The lawsuit had sought $150 billion in damages and also aimed to unwind OpenAI’s for-profit structure. According to the ruling, California law required Musk to bring the case within three years of becoming aware of the alleged breach of OpenAI’s nonprofit mission. Jurors concluded that Musk already knew about the company’s shift toward a for-profit structure years before he sued in 2024.
The jury was not asked to decide whether OpenAI actually betrayed its founding mission. Instead, it only considered whether Musk had filed the case within the legal deadline. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the verdict and dismissed the lawsuit. The jury reportedly took around two hours to reach its decision.
Background and Implications
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit dedicated to developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. He left the board in 2018 and later criticized the company’s shift to a for-profit model and its partnership with Microsoft. This legal battle highlights ongoing tensions over the direction of AI development and the governance of organizations originally established with philanthropic goals. The outcome of the appeal could set a precedent for how courts handle claims against nonprofits that transition to for-profit entities.
