Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015 and left its board in 2018. He sued in 2024, alleging OpenAI and Sam Altman abandoned its charitable mission, and led a $97.4 billion bid for it in 2025, but in May 2026 an advisory jury found, and the judge agreed, that his trial claims were filed too late.
The court adopted the advisory jury's verdict that Musk's trial claims are time-barred. His remaining claims and OpenAI's counterclaims were referred to a court-appointed mediator on July 1, 2026, and the CourtListener docket, last updated September 29, 2026, shows no final judgment or notice of appeal. In xAI's separate trade secrets appeal, OpenAI filed its answering brief in the Ninth Circuit on October 23, 2026.
OpenAI was announced as a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company with Sam Altman and Elon Musk as co-chairs. Its funders, including Musk, committed a total of $1 billion, the announcement said.
OpenAI announced that Musk would leave its board but continue to donate and advise, saying the move would avoid a potential conflict as Tesla focused more on AI. TechCrunch later reported that Musk left after his bid to become chief executive was rejected.
OpenAI created OpenAI LP, a capped-profit company under the nonprofit, to raise more capital.
Musk sued OpenAI, Altman and others in a San Francisco court, alleging they had abandoned the founding mission of developing AI for the benefit of humanity in favour of profit.
OpenAI published early emails and said Musk had wanted majority equity, board control and the chief executive role, or a merger with Tesla, before he left. It said it would move to dismiss all of his claims.
Musk's lawyers moved to dismiss his state court lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman.
Musk filed a new suit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that he was manipulated into co-founding OpenAI. Microsoft was among the defendants.
Responding to Musk's latest filing, OpenAI said that in 2017 Musk himself had created a for-profit as OpenAI's proposed new structure.
A group of investors led by Musk offered $97.4 billion for the assets of the nonprofit that controls OpenAI. Musk said he wanted to return OpenAI to what it had been.
Altman rejected the offer in a post on X and offered instead to buy Twitter, now X, for a tenth of Musk's bid.
OpenAI's board formally and unanimously rejected the Musk-led bid, chairman Bret Taylor said.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers denied Musk's request to halt OpenAI's planned change to a for-profit structure, and offered an expedited trial on the core claims.
OpenAI filed counterclaims accusing Musk of a campaign of harassment, including the bid, and asked the court to stop further unlawful and unfair action. On August 12, 2025 the court refused to dismiss those counterclaims.
OpenAI said its nonprofit would stay in control and its for-profit LLC would become a public benefit corporation with the same mission.
xAI filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California accusing OpenAI of recruiting former xAI employees to obtain trade secrets related to its Grok chatbot.
OpenAI said it had completed its recapitalization. The nonprofit, renamed the OpenAI Foundation, holds equity then valued at about $130 billion in the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC.
In early January 2026 Judge Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Musk's claims could go to a jury, citing evidence that OpenAI's leaders had assured him the nonprofit structure would be kept. OpenAI called the suit baseless.
Opening statements began in Musk's case against Altman, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, OpenAI and Microsoft. Musk sought to unwind the for-profit change, have defendants disgorge what his lawyers called ill-gotten gains and remove Altman from the nonprofit board.
An advisory jury found after less than two hours that Musk's claims were barred by the statute of limitations, and the judge adopted the verdict. The claim against Microsoft was also dismissed. The court did not decide whether the charitable trust claims had merit.
Musk called the verdict a calendar technicality in a post on X, and his lawyer said the case would be appealed.
OpenAI's lead trial lawyer told reporters the verdict was not a technical decision and said Musk had held back his claims to use against a competitor.
A post-trial order confirmed that the court had adopted the advisory jury verdict and its own statements at trial as findings of fact and conclusions of law.
The judge noted that Musk had opted not to amend his remaining causes of action, voiced concerns about their viability and ordered the parties to agree a briefing schedule.
US District Judge Rita Lin dismissed xAI's trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI with prejudice, finding xAI had not shown that OpenAI induced a former engineer to disclose confidential information.
OpenAI, Microsoft and Musk filed a stipulated schedule for briefing the remaining claims, with final replies due October 26, 2026. The court's July 1 mediation order terminated the stipulation, according to the docket.
The court appointed R. David Proctor as mediator for all claims that have not reached final judgment, including counterclaims, and conditionally as special master if mediation fails.
xAI appealed the dismissal of its trade secrets case to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where the appeal was docketed as No. 26-4486. It filed its opening brief on August 24, 2026.
Musk and xAI filed their answer to OpenAI's counterclaims, under a deadline the court set on July 2 at the parties' request.
OpenAI filed its answering brief asking the Ninth Circuit to affirm the dismissal of xAI's trade secrets case, according to the docket and MLex.
“the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was”
“OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk's latest attempt to disrupt his competition”
“There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity.”
“It's not a technical decision, it's a substantive one”
| Court | US District Court, Northern District of California |
| Case | Musk v. Altman, 4:24-cv-04722-YGR, filed August 5, 2024 |
| Verdict | May 18, 2026, advisory jury found trial claims time-barred, adopted by the judge and confirmed in a May 20 order |
| Takeover bid | $97.4 billion, rejected by the OpenAI board on February 14, 2025 |
| OpenAI structure | OpenAI Group PBC, controlled by the OpenAI Foundation since October 28, 2025 |
| Remaining claims | Musk's untried claims and OpenAI's counterclaims, referred to a mediator on July 1, 2026 |
| xAI appeal | Ninth Circuit No. 26-4486, docketed July 15, 2026 |
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Last updated 31 October 2026. Spotted an error? See corrections. Every event links to the record it comes from. Allegations are attributed to whoever made them.