Musk blasts OpenAI on X before trial over nonprofit mission claim

Elon Musk spent Monday flooding X with more than two dozen posts about OpenAI, Sam Altman and the case, using his nearly 240 million followers to argue that he helped found the lab to save humanity and that it later abandoned that mission. The burst of posting came as jury selection was underway in Oakland, California, and just before opening statements were expected to begin in a trial that could help determine whether OpenAI was built on broken promises or a lawful corporate evolution.

The case reaches far beyond a fight between billionaires. Musk’s 2024 lawsuit accuses OpenAI, Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman of betraying the nonprofit mission that Musk says was central when the company was founded in 2015. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers narrowed the case on Friday, April 24, dismissing Musk’s fraud claims but allowing his breach-of-charitable-trust and unjust-enrichment claims to move forward. Musk is still seeking $150 billion in damages for OpenAI’s charitable arm, and the lawsuit has been cut from 26 original claims to two remaining claims.

That legal trimming matters because the trial now centers on a narrower but still consequential question: whether OpenAI’s shift from a nonprofit research lab to a commercial powerhouse violated duties tied to its original structure. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit by Musk, Altman and other tech executives in 2015. Musk left the board in 2018, and OpenAI created its for-profit arm in 2019. In May 2025, OpenAI said its nonprofit parent would continue to control the company while the for-profit arm converted into a public benefit corporation.

Musk’s social media offensive also lands as OpenAI’s business prospects swell. Reuters has reported that the company could pursue an initial public offering with a valuation as high as $1 trillion, a figure that would make the stakes in the Oakland courtroom even larger than the fight over mission and governance. That is why Musk’s barrage on X may matter as much for who is listening outside the courthouse as for who is seated inside it. The posts appeared designed to frame the dispute for investors, regulators, potential jurors and the broader public before the first witness takes the stand.