A jury in Oakland rejected Elon Musk's 2024 lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman after two hours of deliberation on May 18, 2026.
A jury in Oakland dismissed Elon Musk’s civil suit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman on May 18, 2026, rejecting his claim that the company abandoned a pledge to remain a nonprofit. The verdict removes the immediate legal threat to OpenAI’s leadership and corporate structure, leaving its current governance intact for now.
Musk filed the case in 2024, accusing OpenAI of abandoning a promise to stay a nonprofit and seeking broad remedies. He asked the court for up to $134 billion in what he described as "ill-gotten gains" and sought the removal of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. The complaint centered on OpenAI’s transition away from a pure nonprofit structure and sought both financial and governance remedies tied to that shift.
Claims against Microsoft — which has invested in OpenAI since 2019 — were also dismissed. During the trial, OpenAI’s lawyers told jurors that Musk had proposed a for-profit arrangement himself if he retained control, an argument the jury evidently credited. Jurors returned the verdict after about two hours of deliberation. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said she would have been ready to dismiss the case "on the spot" and that "there’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding." Musk’s attorney, Steven Molo, said he reserved the right to appeal.
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