Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI will face a jury in March

Elon Musk lawsuit against OpenAI will go to trial after a US judge said there was evidence to support the billionaire’s case.

Musk sued OpenAI and its co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman in 2024, alleging that they betrayed the original contractual agreement by pursuing profit over the non-profit founder’s mission to develop AI that benefits humanity.

Musk, who has launched his own profit xAI companywas an early financial supporter and co-founder of OpenAI. He resigned from the board in 2018 after an offer to take over as CEO was rejected by the other co-founders, who put Altman up for the job. Officially, Musk cited a potential conflict of interest with Tesla’s own AI development for self-driving cars.

Since leaving OpenAI, he has been a vocal critic from the firm transition to a model for profit, and even made an unsolicited $97.4 billion offer to buy OpenAI in February 2025, which Altman rejected. OpenAI, which was founded in 2015 as a non-profit research laboratory, first began to move from its pure non-profit roots in 2019 by creating a for-profit subsidiary with a “capped-profit” model that limits investors’ returns. It is designed to help OpenAI raise the large amount of funding it needs to scale and attract top talent.

Musk’s lawsuit could not prevent OpenAI from becoming a non-profit, and in October 2025, the company will completed the formal restructuring process. The non-profit branch becomes a Public Benefit Corporation, with the original non-profit retaining 26% of the equity shares.

Musk is now seeking monetary damages from what he says are “poor results” by OpenAI. He said he invested about $38 million in initial funding, as well as mentoring and credibility, based on assurances that OpenAI would remain a nonprofit.

District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said her decision was based on evidence showing OpenAI’s leadership made assurances that its original nonprofit structure would be preserved, as Musk had alleged. Rogers is scheduled for a jury trial in March.