Jury Dismisses Elon Musk’s OpenAI Lawsuit: Evidence and Appeal

A federal judge in Oakland dismissed the Musk v. OpenAI lawsuit on May 18, 2026, after a nine-member advisory jury unanimously found that Elon Musk had waited too long to file. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the jury’s finding and dismissed all claims against OpenAI, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Microsoft from the bench, stating, “I’ve always said I would accept the jury’s verdict. I think there’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding.”¹ The case never reached the merits of Musk’s core accusation — that OpenAI’s leaders betrayed the organization’s nonprofit mission.

What the Jury Actually Decided

The advisory jury did not rule on whether OpenAI’s shift to a for-profit structure breached a charitable trust, whether Altman and Brockman enriched themselves, or whether Microsoft’s investments corrupted the organization’s mission. It answered a narrower question: had Musk known, or should he have known, about the conduct he was challenging long enough before filing that the statute of limitations had run out?

Deliberations began at 8:30 a.m. on May 18 and ended by 10:23 a.m. The nine jurors unanimously concluded Musk was aware of the underlying conduct as early as 2021, which put his August 2024 federal complaint outside the three-year window.²³ Judge Gonzalez Rogers, who had told both sides she would very likely follow the advisory verdict, adopted it as the court’s own finding and dismissed on the spot.

Why the Filing Date Decided Everything

Musk’s breach of charitable trust claim carried a three-year statute of limitations. Because he filed the federal case on August 5, 2024, he needed to show he did not know — and could not reasonably have known — about the conduct he was challenging before August 5, 2021. A separate unjust enrichment claim against Altman and Brockman had an August 5, 2022 cutoff. Microsoft, which was added as a defendant four months after the original filing, had a cutoff of November 2021.⁴

Musk’s team argued the clock started in October 2022, when an email exchange with Altman about Microsoft’s $10 billion investment allegedly showed him for the first time that the charity was being “stolen.” OpenAI’s lead counsel William Savitt argued that Musk had known for years. Savitt pointed to a 2018 term sheet sent to Musk’s own inbox that outlined the planned for-profit restructuring, and to a 2020 tweet in which Musk publicly said OpenAI had been “essentially captured” by Microsoft. Savitt framed the suit as “a case of sour grapes” from a plaintiff who walked away in 2018 and only sued once a competitor product he backed was losing ground.⁴

The jury sided with the defense on that timeline.

What Musk Had Alleged

Musk’s federal complaint, filed August 5, 2024, expanded a case he had originally brought in San Francisco Superior Court in February 2024 and then withdrawn. The refiled version added Microsoft as a defendant and Musk’s own AI venture, xAI, as a co-plaintiff, and grew to 26 causes of action covering breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of charitable trust, unjust enrichment, antitrust violations, RICO claims, and fraud.⁵⁶

The suit sought $150 billion in damages payable to OpenAI’s charitable arm, the removal of Altman and Brockman from leadership, and an unwinding of the for-profit restructuring.⁷ Musk had contributed roughly $38 million to $44 million to OpenAI between its 2015 founding and 2018, when he resigned from the board, and he told the jury he considered himself “a fool who provided them free funding to create what would become an $800 billion company.”⁸

By splitting the trial into a liability phase followed by a damages phase, and by seating an advisory jury on liability alone, Judge Gonzalez Rogers created a structure in which a single unfavorable finding on timing could end the entire case. That is what happened.

The Evidence That Sank the Case

Two pieces of evidence proved especially damaging to Musk’s timing argument. The first was the 2018 term sheet, which the defense showed had been sent directly to Musk and which described the planned pivot he later said blindsided him. The second was Musk’s own 2020 tweet describing OpenAI as captured by Microsoft — a public statement, from Musk himself, showing awareness of the very relationship he later sued over.⁴

OpenAI attorney Sarah Eddy also introduced evidence that Musk himself had once pushed to convert OpenAI into a for-profit entity where he would hold a majority stake, complicating his framing of the for-profit shift as a betrayal.⁹ Musk’s own testimony did not help. Under cross-examination, he grew visibly frustrated, at one point accusing Savitt of trying to “trick” him and prompting the judge to intervene.⁸

Judge Gonzalez Rogers also refused to let Musk’s counsel broaden the trial into a debate over AI safety. “This is not a trial on the safety risks of artificial intelligence,” she said. “The question here is about whether there was a breach of charitable trust.”¹⁰

Musk’s Appeal and Its Prospects

Musk posted on X shortly after the dismissal, calling the verdict a “terrible precedent” and a “calendar technicality” and writing, “There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity.”¹¹ Outside the courthouse, Musk’s lead attorney Marc Toberoff summed up the plan in one word: “appeal.”¹² The appeal will go to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Savitt rejected the “technicality” framing. He called the statute of limitations finding “substantive” and said Musk “brought your claims too late, and you did it because you were sitting on them to use them as a weapon of a competitor who can’t compete in the marketplace.” A Microsoft spokesperson said the “facts and the timeline in this case have long been clear.”¹¹

Legal observers were skeptical of Musk’s chances on appeal. Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond School of Law said “an appeals court would be very unlikely to overturn such a fact-specific decision from a jury.” Appellate lawyer Raffi Melkonian added that “appeals of jury verdicts are very hard to win.”¹²

What the Dismissal Means for OpenAI

The ruling cleared a major legal obstacle as OpenAI moved toward a public offering. Altman is targeting an IPO as early as September 2026, with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan as underwriters.¹³ On June 8, 2026, OpenAI confirmed it had submitted a confidential S-1 registration to the SEC. The company was valued at $852 billion in a March 2026 funding round, and analysts have projected the IPO valuation could approach $1 trillion.¹⁴

OpenAI had already completed its restructuring in October 2025 into OpenAI Group PBC, a public benefit corporation with its nonprofit parent retaining a controlling stake and Microsoft holding a 27% equity interest valued at roughly $135 billion.¹⁵ California Attorney General Rob Bonta reached a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI allowing the restructuring to proceed, though his office stopped short of formal approval and did not require the independent asset valuation that critics had sought.¹⁶

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