Waited too long Elon Musk fails with 150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman
The richest man in the world in court against one of the most influential AI managers: in the end, Elon Musk failed with his explosive lawsuit. The jury decided that he had hesitated too long.
19.05.2026, 05:00
19.05.2026, 05:13
dpa
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- Elon Musk has lost out in court: his lawsuit against ChatGPT developer OpenAI failed.
- The reason for this was that the statute of limitations had already expired.
- With his lawsuit, Musk wanted to ensure that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and top manager Greg Brockman had to step down.
Billionaire Elon Musk has suffered a defeat in a legal dispute with OpenAI, a company specializing in artificial intelligence. The jury in the trial in Oakland, California, ruled on Monday that Musk had not filed his lawsuit on time.
Musk had accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman in a lawsuit of betraying the original shared vision for OpenAI. Instead of running it as a non-profit organization for the benefit of humanity, they had directed OpenAI towards profit maximization behind its back. Musk claimed damages of 150 billion dollars and demanded that Altman be kicked off OpenAI's board of directors.
After only two hours of deliberations, the nine-member jury came to the unanimous conclusion that Musk had waited too long to file his lawsuit and had missed the statute of limitations. The jury only had an advisory role in the case, but Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted their decision and dismissed Musk's lawsuit.
Elon Musk cannot convince the jury
In the end, however, the timing of Musk's lawsuit in 2024 was decisive. He had already completely stopped supporting OpenAI in 2020 - and was unable to convince the jury that he had only later become suspicious of the behavior of his former comrades-in-arms. In California, the statute of limitations for such allegations is three years.
The jury actually only had an advisory role in the trial. However, Judge Gonzalez Rogers had already announced in advance that she would follow their decision on the statute of limitations. Accordingly, the jury did not even decide on the core of Musk's allegations.
The stakes were high for OpenAI
Musk's success could have set OpenAI back in terms of funding and thus turned the competition in the booming AI industry upside down. With around 700 million users per week, ChatGPT is a leading player, while Musk's rival software Grok is less popular.
According to calculations by the industry service "The Information", OpenAI and its rival Anthropic currently account for almost 90 percent of the AI industry's revenue. Anthropic is slightly ahead.
Musk was an important financial backer of OpenAI in the early days. He contributed a total of around 38 million dollars to the financing. Until mid-2017, he supported AI development with around 25 million dollars in quarterly payments and took over the rent of a good 12 million dollars until 2020. There were also four vehicles from the electric car manufacturer Tesla, which he manages, for top employees.
Dispute over dual structure at OpenAI
OpenAI consists of a non-profit core and a profit-oriented company, which is subordinate to it according to its articles of association. In his lawsuit filed in August 2024, the tech billionaire claimed that he had been deceived by Altman and Brockman.
Musk and his lawyers argued that he had donated the money expressly for the development of artificial intelligence in a non-profit structure. However, most of the value is now in the for-profit company - and Altman, Brockman and the major investor Microsoft are now profiting from this. They had "stolen a non-profit organization", Musk said several times during the trial.
OpenAI disagrees and emphasized that the non-profit core remains in control. Without an additional for-profit company, it would have been impossible to raise the necessary billions in investment, OpenAI argues.
