Nine jurors seated in Musk’s OpenAI lawsuit as trial begins in Oakland

Nine jurors were seated in Oakland on Monday as Elon Musk’s clash with OpenAI moved into a trial that could ripple far beyond the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and into San Francisco’s AI economy. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is overseeing the case, but the jurors will serve only an advisory role in the liability phase; Rogers will make the final decisions.

Opening arguments were set to begin Tuesday, and the liability phase was expected to run until about May 21. The case centers on whether OpenAI and its leaders broke the promises Musk says were made when he co-founded the company in 2015 and later left its board in 2018. Musk sued OpenAI, chief executive Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman in 2024, arguing they abandoned the nonprofit mission that helped define the company’s early pitch.

OpenAI has rejected that claim and has called the lawsuit a baseless harassment campaign. In court, the company described the case as a “pageant of hypocrisy.” Lawyers on Musk’s side have said he should receive up to $134 billion in wrongful gains, although later reporting put his damages claim at about $150 billion. The dispute is less about a single payout than about control, governance and whether one of the Bay Area’s most influential AI institutions can still be said to serve the public interest.

That question matters in San Francisco, where OpenAI’s rise has helped define the city’s place in the AI boom. Microsoft is also a defendant because the case turns in part on whether it knowingly helped OpenAI move away from its nonprofit mission. Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019, and witnesses are expected to include Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, top AI researchers and current and former OpenAI board members.

OpenAI’s corporate structure has already shifted. The company completed a restructuring in October 2025 into a for-profit entity controlled by a nonprofit foundation, then later removed its profit cap and raised $122 billion in its latest funding round. Other reporting pegged its valuation at $852 billion after a March 2026 funding round. Altman and Brockman were present for jury selection in Oakland, while Musk was expected to testify during the trial.

Outside the courthouse, Tesla Takedown organized a protest under the banner “Whoever Wins, We Lose,” a sharp reminder that the fight over OpenAI is being read across San Francisco as a contest over who gets to control the region’s most consequential AI institution.