The jury dismissed all charges in Musk v. Altman on statute of limitations grounds, ending a nearly month-long trial before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Elon Musk, CEO of xAI and OpenAI cofounder, had sued Sam Altman and Greg Brockman in 2024, alleging they abandoned the nonprofit's founding mission to benefit humanity in favor of profit. He asked for their removal and demanded OpenAI halt its conversion to a public benefit corporation.
The trial produced testimony from Musk, Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Brockman, and Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member who has children with Musk. The jury deliberated only a few hours before returning a unanimous verdict. OpenAI called the suit a jealous bid to derail a competitor and protect Musk's own xAI, which operates Grok as a direct ChatGPT rival.
The verdict closes the legal chapter but leaves the underlying questions unanswered: what OpenAI actually promised at founding, and whether its corporate restructuring betrayed those commitments. The trial record, including testimony from Nadella and internal documents cited by both sides, is worth reading for anyone tracking how AI governance actually works, or fails to.
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