Elon Musk has denounced the outcome of his failed lawsuit against OpenAI, saying the judge and jury "never actually ruled on the merits of the case" after a California federal jury unanimously found he had waited too long to sue.
On Monday, a nine-person jury in Oakland advised that all of Musk's claims against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and president Greg Brockman were barred by the statute of limitations, a recommendation U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers adopted in dismissing the case.
Jurors concluded that Musk filed his complaint outside the roughly three-year window that applies to his contract and related claims, meaning they did not need to decide whether his allegations were true. The ruling ended the trial with no liability for OpenAI, its leaders, or its major backers, according to Teslarati.
Musk responded on X by arguing that the decision rested only on timing and not on his central accusations about OpenAI's direction.
He wrote that "the judge & jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality," and repeated his claim that Altman and Brockman had effectively "stolen a charity" by turning the lab into a profit-focused operation.
The lawsuit, filed in 2025, accused OpenAI and its leaders of abandoning a commitment to build artificial intelligence "for the benefit of humanity" and instead prioritizing revenue and valuation.
Musk alleged that OpenAI's shift from a pure nonprofit into a structure that allows investors and staff to earn capped returns, along with large outside investments, violated promises made when he helped found the organization in 2015, NPR reported.
In court, Musk's team asked for sweeping remedies, including the removal of Altman and Brockman, unwinding OpenAI's current corporate structure, and directing any financial recovery to the organization's charitable arm rather than to Musk himself.
OpenAI's lawyers countered that Musk knew about and supported the move toward a for‑profit model years ago and only sued after he left the organization and launched his own AI company, xAI.
Musk has said he intends to appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking to overturn the finding that his claims were time‑barred so that a court can weigh his substantive allegations.
Legal experts note that any appeal will likely focus on when Musk "knew or should have known" of the alleged breach, the key question that started the limitations clock running in this case, as per the BBC.
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