BREAKING: Elon Musk Loses Court Battle With OpenAI, Fails to Get Sam Altman Booted From ChatGPT Parent Company

A California jury ruled against Elon Musk and rejected his lawsuit that claimed OpenAI boss Sam Altman violated the artificial intelligence company’s founding mission by converting it from a nonprofit to a for-profit business.

The jury deliberated for about two hours before sharing its determination at the federal courthouse in Oakland.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the unanimous decision and said “There’s substantial evidence to support the jury’s finding,” per CNBC.

Musk was one of the co-founders of OpenAI — the parent company of ChatGPT — in 2015, but left three years later after having disagreements with how the company was being run. He later sued Altman in 2024, saying he and OpenAI President Greg Brockman acted against its stated goal of developing a nonprofit AI company that “could benefit society.”

The Tesla and SpaceX boss was aiming to have Altman and Brockman booted from their leadership roles at the company; he also wanted the court to push OpenAI and Microsoft to return up to $134 billion in “ill-gotten gains,” as CNBC reported.

He quipped in 2024 that OpenAI should change its name to “ClosedAI” due to its move away from its initial mission. And he posted on X later that year “You can’t just convert a non-profit into a for-profit, That is illegal.”

CNN reported that OpenAI’s lawyers argued “Musk waited to file the suit until he founded his own competing artificial intelligence company, xAI. The jury agreed, finding that Musk was aware of the behavior discussed in the lawsuit as early as 2021.”

The decision on Monday brings the trial to an end, three weeks after it started.

Musk has been cautiously optimistic about AI. He has championed the Grok AI model that is part of X, the social platform he owns, but has also warned AI can lead to the annihilation of mankind if it is not developed properly.

“AI is more dangerous than, say, mismanaged aircraft design or production maintenance or bad car production,” Musk told Tucker Carlson in 2023. “In the sense that it has the potential — however small one may regard that probability, but it is non-trivial — it has the potential of civilization destruction.”

Watch the Fox Business report above for more details.

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