Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responded to the ruling against him in the trial over his accusations against OpenAI. Nine jurors had returned a unanimous verdict that his lawsuits had been filed too late.
Musk had accused Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, OpenAI, and Microsoft of “stealing a charity” by creating a for-profit affiliate of the frontier AI lab. Jurors, however, found that any harms that Musk may have suffered came before the deadline for filing his claims under the law.
Musk said on X that “the judge & jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality.”
READ: Elon Musk goes on rant against Sam Altman amid OpenAI lawsuit (April 28, 2026)
“There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is WHEN they did it!” he said. “I will be filing an appeal with the Ninth Circuit, because creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America. OpenAI was founded to benefit all of humanity.”
The trial focused on whether and when Altman and the other defendants had made and broken promises to Musk, but his case failed to convince jurors that he had a valid claim. OpenAI had advanced a statute of limitations defense, which sought to prove that any harm Musk sought to litigate had taken place before 2021. The specific date varied by the charge: before August 5, 2021, for the first count; August 5, 2022, for the second count; and November 14, 2021, for the third count. The jury found this argument persuasive, which made for a short deliberation period.
“There was a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding, which is why I was prepared to dismiss on the spot,” Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said after the verdict was delivered.
READ: OpenAI apologizes to Tumbler Ridge over data incident (April 26, 2026)
The end of the case means that OpenAI no longer faces the threat of restructuring ahead of its planned IPO. “It did not take [the jury] two hours to conclude … that Mr. Musk’s lawsuit is nothing more than an after-the-fact contrivance that bears no relationship to reality,” OpenAI’s lead attorney Bill Savitt said after the verdict. “They kicked it exactly where it belongs — just to the side. This lawsuit is a hypocritical attempt to sabotage a competitor.”
The verdict was also welcomed by Microsoft, which Musk sued for aiding and abetting OpenAI’s alleged breach of charitable trust. A spokesperson for the company said it “remained committed to our work with OpenAI to advance and scale AI for people and organizations around the world.”