A nine-person jury in a federal court in Oakland, California, unanimously ruled that Elon Musk filed his lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman too late — and that was the end of it. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers immediately dismissed all of Musk’s claims.
Because he missed the three-year statute of limitations, Musk’s carefully prepared arguments — including breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment of executives — never even made it to trial.
Outside the courtroom, an OpenAI spokesperson called the verdict "a great victory," and the company’s lead lawyer bluntly said Musk’s allegations "have no relation to reality and are complete nonsense."
Musk quickly fired off on X (formerly Twitter), calling the ruling a "calendar technicality." He insisted there’s no doubt that Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman "stole from a charity to make themselves rich."
His attorney, Marc Toberoff, issued the strongest statement outside court: "One word — appeal. This war is not over."
Toberoff reiterated the core of the case: "You cannot allow people to raise millions of dollars under the guise of a public charity, then when the time is right, turn it into a for-profit company and enrich the executives. If they get away with it this time, the defenses of charitable institutions will be obliterated."
Despite Musk’s vow to fight on, multiple veteran appellate lawyers note that it’s extremely difficult for an appeals court to overturn a jury’s finding on a statute of limitations issue. The legal marathon — touching on the legality of OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit and Musk’s own credibility — now heads to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for a long slog.