US Jury Unanimously Rejects Musk's Lawsuit Against OpenAI

The verdict turned instead on California's statute of limitations — the legal deadline for filing certain claims — which is three years for breach of charitable trust and two years for unjust enrichment. Legal observers suggested that the jurors likely concluded Musk had known about OpenAI's for-profit pivot for years and had therefore waited too long to sue. Musk's legal team had tried to discredit Altman, calling former executives such as Mira Murati and Ilya Sutskever to testify that he was deceptive. OpenAI's lawyers countered with evidence that Musk himself had once endorsed the for-profit shift and had even sought "total control" of the company before leaving in 2018 after his bid was rejected.

Musk vowed on his platform X to appeal, arguing that the jury had ruled "on a calendar technicality" rather than the substance of his accusations, and accused the judge of bias. OpenAI's lawyer William Savitt said the jurors had "reached the right result quickly", while company spokesman Sam Singer called the verdict "a tremendous victory". Microsoft, which has invested around $13 billion in OpenAI and was also named in the suit, said the timeline of events "has long been clear" and reiterated its commitment to the partnership. The outcome removes a significant cloud over OpenAI as it prepares for a potential public share offering valued at around $1 trillion later this year, while Musk pushes ahead with a separate flotation of SpaceX after merging it with xAI.