Jury sides with OpenAI, rejects Musk’s nonprofit betrayal claim

A federal jury in Oakland sided with OpenAI and rejected Elon Musk’s central claim that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman had betrayed the company’s nonprofit mission. The panel found Musk waited too long to sue, and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the advisory verdict immediately, ending a trial that had turned OpenAI’s founding story into a fight over control, money and the future of artificial intelligence.

Musk filed the lawsuit in 2024, arguing that OpenAI, which he co-founded in December 2015 as a nonprofit research lab, had been improperly steered toward commercial gain. His complaint said roughly $38 million he donated was used for unauthorized commercial purposes and sought to unwind the company’s restructuring. The case revolved around 2017 and 2018 negotiations over how to raise more money for computing resources, including possible for-profit structures, and it put Musk’s own role at the center of the record.

Altman’s defense pushed back hard on Musk’s betrayal narrative. At trial, Altman testified that OpenAI was “left for dead” after Musk departed the board in February 2018. The company argued that Musk himself had helped advance discussions about a for-profit structure before walking away from the project. One tense exchange captured the stakes of the feud: “By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America.” The line underscored how personal the dispute had become, even as the legal issue narrowed to timing and corporate governance.

The verdict also removed a major legal cloud over OpenAI’s fundraising plans and any future initial public offering. That matters because the company’s current structure, after a 2025 overhaul, left control with the nonprofit arm while the for-profit arm became a public benefit corporation. OpenAI says its nonprofit and for-profit entities now work together to advance the mission, a structure that is central to the company’s ability to raise capital for expensive AI development. The case also highlighted the broader industry stakes: Musk has launched xAI as a rival and argued that control over artificial general intelligence should not drift into commercial hands.

For OpenAI, the ruling is more than a courtroom win. It is a sign that, for now, the company’s legal architecture can survive the challenge from one of its founders, and that the battle over AI governance will be fought as much through corporate structure and statutes of limitation as through appeals to original intent.