At stake is nothing less than the corporate soul of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and whether its chief executive, Sam Altman, deceived the world’s richest man into bankrolling a venture that was supposed to stay nonprofit forever.
The long-simmering feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman now lands before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who will preside over a trial expected to last roughly four weeks. Musk, an estranged co-founder of OpenAI who now runs the rival AI company xAI, claims that Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman breached a founding contract by steering the organization toward a for-profit structure in partnership with Microsoft. He argues they tricked him into providing early funding with promises that OpenAI would operate exclusively for humanity’s benefit.
If Musk prevails, the outcome could unravel the complex corporate conversion that OpenAI finalized last year with approval from the attorneys general of California and Delaware. That restructuring unlocked billions of dollars in new investment and cleared a path for the company to go public as soon as this year. A ruling against OpenAI would threaten to upend its leadership and throw its financial future into uncertainty at a moment when the company faces mounting pressure from well-funded competitors such as Anthropic.
But legal experts say Musk faces steep odds. Several lawyers who have followed the case, including some who oppose OpenAI’s for-profit shift, doubt that Judge Gonzalez Rogers will reverse the restructuring after state regulators signed off on it. “It’s very, very unlikely that they undo the transaction,” said Samuel Brunson, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago who focuses on nonprofit law. “His best bet would be monetary damages.”
The trial has become a must-watch showdown in one of technology’s fiercest rivalries, drawing in figures far beyond Musk and Altman. Throughout the lawsuit, OpenAI has argued that Musk’s actions are designed to benefit xAI by slowing down a competitor. The company contends that Musk himself agreed to the for-profit concept as early as 2017, a claim the billionaire has denied.
A judge with a reputation for rigor
Judge Gonzalez Rogers, an appointee of former President Barack Obama known for her no-nonsense demeanor and experience overseeing high-profile tech disputes, has structured the trial in two phases. In the first, the jury will decide whether Altman and OpenAI are liable for wrongdoing. If they are, a second phase will determine an appropriate remedy. Jury selection began Monday, and testimony is expected to feature both Musk and Altman, as well as other key figures from OpenAI’s early days.
The case has raised fundamental questions about the motives of the industry’s most prominent personalities and the nature of the promises that underpin some of the most valuable companies in the world. As OpenAI navigates a cash crunch and intensifying competition, the trial’s outcome could reshape the balance of power in the race to build advanced artificial intelligence.
