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Elon Musk Loses Lawsuit Against OpenAI (reuters.com) 97

Posted by BeauHD from the statute-of-limitations dept.
After three weeks of testimony, which was covered extensively here on Slashdot, a U.S. jury on Monday ruled against Elon Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, finding that he waited too long to bring his claims that the company betrayed its nonprofit mission. Reuters reports: The trial had widely been seen as a critical moment for the future of OpenAI and artificial intelligence generally, both in how it should be used and who should benefit from it. Following the verdict, Musk's lawyer said he reserved the right to appeal, but the judge suggested he may have an uphill battle because whether the statute of limitations ran out before Musk sued was a factual issue. "There's a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury's finding, which is why I was prepared to dismiss on the spot," U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said.

In his 2024 lawsuit, Musk accused OpenAI, its Chief Executive Sam Altman and its President Greg Brockman of manipulating him into giving $38 million, then going behind his back by attaching a for-profit business to its original nonprofit and accepting tens of billions of dollars from Microsoft and other investors. Musk called the OpenAI defendants' conduct "stealing a charity." OpenAI was founded by Altman, Musk and several others in 2015. Musk left its board in 2018, and OpenAI set up a for-profit business the next year. OpenAI countered that it was Musk who saw dollar signs, and that he waited too long to claim OpenAI breached its founding agreement to build safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity. "Mr. Musk may have the Midas touch in some areas, but not in AI," William Savitt, a lawyer for OpenAI, said in his closing argument.

The verdict followed 11 days of testimony and arguments where Musk's and Altman's credibility came under repeated attack. Lawyers for OpenAI embraced each other after the verdict was announced. Microsoft faced an aiding and abetting claim. In a statement, a Microsoft spokesperson said, "The facts and the timeline in this case have long been clear and we welcome the jury's decision to dismiss these claims as untimely." Recap:
Musk Accused of 'Selective Amnesia', Altman of Lying As OpenAI Trial Nears End (Day Twelve)
OpenAI Trial Wraps Up With 'Jackass' Trophy For Challenging Musk (Day Eleven)
Sam Altman Testifies That Elon Musk Wanted Control of OpenAI (Day Ten)
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Testifies In OpenAI Trial (Day Nine)
Sam Altman Had a Bad Day In Court (Day Eight)
Sam Altman's Management Style Comes Under the Microscope At OpenAI Trial (Day Seven)
Brockman Rebuts Musk's Take On Startup's History, Recounts Secret Work For Tesla (Day Six)
OpenAI President Discloses His Stake In the Company Is Worth $30 Billion (Day Five)
Musk Concludes Testimony At OpenAI Trial (Day Four)
Elon Musk Says OpenAI Betrayed Him, Clashes With Company's Attorney (Day Three)
Musk Testifies OpenAI Was Created As Nonprofit To Counter Google (Day Two)
Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court (Day One)

Elon Musk Loses Lawsuit Against OpenAI More | Reply

Elon Musk Loses Lawsuit Against OpenAI

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  • Mixed feelings.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Junta ( 36770 ) on Monday May 18, 2026 @03:17PM (#66149777)

    On the one hand, love seeing Musk lose, on the other hand, I hate seeing Altman win..

    • Re:Mixed feelings.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Monday May 18, 2026 @04:03PM (#66149877)
      I hate seeing seemingly intelligent people view this as "I hate that business guy more than the other business guy", as opposed to "What rules should American business have to operate under".

      • Re:Mixed feelings.. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Monday May 18, 2026 @04:28PM (#66149917)

        I hate seeing seemingly intelligent people view this as "I hate that business guy more than the other business guy", as opposed to "What rules should American business have to operate under".

        Unfortunately, those rules won't really matter while the guy at the top rigs things in favor of "friends" (meaning sycophants). Yes, Elon lost in court, but he's got two and a half more years and a ton of "flatter the king" money to change things in his favor. Also unfortunately, our current business and political climates are just cults of personality where money gets you everywhere. Those rules are also about to get skewed even more by the $1.7 billion slush fund the IRS is setting up for Trump, for dropping his bogus, and probably illegal, lawsuit against himself, so he can pay people he thinks were wronged under Biden, like the Jan 6th insurrectionists.

        • so he can pay people he thinks were wronged under Biden

          I think the word is "claims" - rewarding people who backed him and his "I wuz robbed" at a cost to themselves.

          • so he can pay people he thinks were wronged under Biden

            I think the word is "claims" - rewarding people who backed him and his "I wuz robbed" at a cost to themselves.

            The only relevant difference between thinks and claims is whether or not he [Trump] vocalized his thoughts. And yeah, he does that a lot.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        I hate that they're right to.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        The DOGE rules? If you actually cared about a single rule "American business have to operate under" you would be cheering this decision like everyone else. What we have here is two sociopathic billionaires and a douchebag cheering on one of them. Any "seemingly intelligent" person would hope both lost everything.

      • I hate seeing seemingly intelligent people view this as "I hate that business guy more than the other business guy", as opposed to "What rules should American business have to operate under".

        That's a typically shit take, because both of these business guys have proven repeatedly that they are both hot garbage as human beings. It on brand for you to ignore that.

      • Musk won at capitalism, so the current system of rules that American businesses have to operate under seems to be working very much in his favor. You'd think he'd just sit the fuck down and enjoy his riches, but nope, he just can't stand the fact that some other sleazy businessman also was able to have their own 5 minutes in the limelight. Musk is like the business world's version of Madonna.

      • I hate seeing seemingly intelligent people view this as "I hate that business guy more than the other business guy", as opposed to "What rules should American business have to operate under".

        There's nothing wrong with the rules of business, this was a contractual dispute between two parties. It is very much about the people involved. "Seemingly intelligent" people understand this is not about what your feelings are about non-profits turning for-profit (a process which has existed for a long time).

      • as opposed to "What rules should American business have to operate under".

        "Might makes right" is the national motto. Only losers care about rules.

    • No matter who wins, we all lose.

  • Wasn't he right though? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Morromist ( 1207276 ) on Monday May 18, 2026 @03:18PM (#66149785)

    It does look like his arguement that they stole a non-profit to make a massive business may have really happened. Kind of weird how stealing an entire non-profit worth billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars only has a statue of limitations of 2-3 years. That has to be one of the biggest thefts in the history of stealing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 )

      He was in government for how many years? If he wanted the statute of limitations altered, then surely that would have been the time to do it.

      It would seem to me that he didn't care about the statute of limitations until AFTER other people started getting rich and he didn't.

      • He was in government for how many years? If he wanted the statute of limitations altered, then surely that would have been the time to do it.

        That probably would have been a really hard sell to Congress, even a Republican-controlled one.

        It would seem to me that he didn't care about the statute of limitations until AFTER other people started getting rich and he didn't.

        So sad Elon missed out on getting rich. :-) More seriously, how much more money does Elon need? /s

        • So sad Elon missed out on getting rich. :-) More seriously, how much more money does Elon need? /s

          Money buys power. Money buys control. Money buys countries.

      • Do you know how laws are made / changed?

        Did you miss that episode of Schoolhouse Rock?

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by jd ( 1658 )

          In America, laws are made by paying the politicians under the table. That's common knowledge. It's how the DMCA got passed, for example. But it's also made by having financially valuable information information, particularly that which permits politicians to have insider information that they can sell for votes/influence or use to make a killing on the stock market.

          (You notice anything odd about oil price fluctuations recently?)

          Musk had access to money, some of the largest databases the USG had, and the abi

      • Re:Wasn't he right though? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by njvack ( 646524 ) <njvack@freshforever.net> on Monday May 18, 2026 @05:06PM (#66149997)

        Musk also could have just filed suit within the allowed time, which is the correct way of doing this. It's not like he didn't know about OpenAI's actions; none of this was secret and he clearly knows how to file a lawsuit.

        The actual goal here was likely to make OpenAI go through discovery, waste a bunch of money, and get company officers up on the stand to say embarrassing things. Which they absolutely did.

        It's not entirely clear to me why Altman didn't have the suit dismissed way back in the day; the statute of limitations question was not, like, a challenging one and the judge even basically said "yeah we could have dismissed this ages ago." Unless, of course, Altman wanted to make Musk go through discovery, waste money, and get on the stand to say embarrassing things. Which also happened.

        Congratulations to both parties, I guess.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by dfghjk ( 711126 )

          I like how people assume Musk would have won if not for a technicality. The case wasn't even considered by the jury because of failure to file on time. There is no reason to believe it would have faired better if not dismissed for the reason it was.

          Musk is a malignant sociopath, doing damage to people is his priority. It's really bad when Peter Thiel says that about you.

          • I like how people assume Musk would have won if not for a technicality.

            Based on what I have seen in this case, I don't know which side to believe as both sides are untrustworthy.

      • He was in government for how many years? If he wanted the statute of limitations altered, then surely that would have been the time to do it.

        Musk was "in government" for about four months, as part of DoGE. He was busy tearing stuff down, not building anything up.

      • He was in government for how many years?

        120 days. That's less than 1/3 of a year for those who are not good at math. None of that time was spent in the Legislative branch, so Musk spent exactly 0 years in any position to make law.

    • He's only pissed that his own attempt to do the exact same thing didn't work, and they did it with Microsoft money instead of his.

      All of these guys need to be put through an industrial shredder.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      It was a civil case, there was no issue of "stealing an entire non-profit worth billions". Did you have Grok write that?

    • Non-profits "transfer" to for-profits all the time. Churches do: https://www.startchurch.com/bl... [startchurch.com]

    • Kind of weird how stealing an entire non-profit worth billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars only has a statue of limitations of 2-3 years.

      The principle is if there were not any limitations, people could sue for things that happened long in the past and bog down the courts. The limitations by the way is governed when something can be known not when it happens. In this case, however, Musk knew OpenAI was turning for-profit as it was public knowledge back in 2019. He waited until 2024. If Musk was so damaged by the change he could have sued earlier. It's not like he didn't have the money to sue.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It does look like his arguement that they stole a non-profit to make a massive business may have really happened.

      How was it "stolen"? His complaint is that they didn't following the founding agreement. No one took his ownership share. They stole his dreams!

    • Could a legal expert please weigh in how and why the statute of limitations is THIS low on this?
      If you steal some bread from Walmart or rob a bank, is it also just 2-3 years?

    • That has to be one of the biggest thefts in the history of stealing.

      Is it though? One of the people involved effectively "stole" Tesla from the actual founders (none of which had the name Elon Musk - he only joined the company years later and then proceeded to call himself a co-founder).

      Musk's only upset he didn't get a slice of the pie this time.

    • Kind of weird how stealing an entire non-profit worth billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars only has a statue of limitations of 2-3 years. That has to be one of the biggest thefts in the history of stealing.

      ROFLMAO. Not even close to the biggest theft in history. I am guessing you are too young to remember Savings and Loans and FSLIC? Trillions stolen. OpenAI is chump change. Or, how about Social Security? All of that money goes into bonds which moves that money out of Social Security accounts and moves it all into the General Fund. Trillions stolen and meager Social Security checks for the people. There will be absolutely nothing left for you in a few years.

      Billions stolen. Largest theft in history. LOL.

  • I was under the impression that an appeal against a not guilty verdict was not permitted in the US, and was only permissible in the UK in the event of murder when overwhelming evidence showed wilful interference of the trial or exceptional new evidence.

    • Re:Appeal possible? (Score:5, Informative)

      by njvack ( 646524 ) <njvack@freshforever.net> on Monday May 18, 2026 @03:42PM (#66149841)

      It's not a "not guilty" verdict, it's a procedural verdict; the statute of limitations had expired prior to Musk filing suit. (Also, civil trials don't find guilt in the way criminal trials do.) You can appeal that ("the court calculated the dates wrong" I guess?) but generally you will fail because if you could show the court calculated the dates wrong, you would not have gotten tossed in the first place.

      The exception would be if you had really strong evidence the court was in the bag for the opposition and was treating you unfairly, but AFAIK there's no evidence of that here.

      This said, Musk has absolutely bottomless pools of a) money and b) resentment so God knows he'll probably appeal just to be a dick. I'm not sure if this is a "he will have to pay OpenAI's lawyers and court fees" situation but even if he does, it's still probably more annoyance than the money is worth.

      • This is a civil trial, not a criminal trial. There is no "jeopardy" there is no double jeopardy. This is a civil suit.

    • This is a civil suit. There is no "guilty" or "not guilty" here. Only liable / not liable, and that can be appealed by either party to the circuit court, and the supreme court.

  • Technicality (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ebonum ( 830686 ) on Monday May 18, 2026 @03:29PM (#66149817)

    The case was won on a technicality. The core issue was never really addressed.

     

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      There was no core issue.

    • The core issue for civil cases is whether or not the plaintiff was damaged. Filing a lawsuit years after the limitations ran out would undercut any argument Musk had that he was damaged. He was aware of the conversion to for-profit. He had the money to sue. He wasn't damaged enough to sue before the limitations ran out would be a conclusion by the court.

    • As I wrote in 2001, with a plea digital public works -- like self-driving AI software funded by government dollars which I had seen in action at CMU around 1985 -- always stay open and free if funded by government or charitable dollars:
      https://pdfernhout.net/on-fund... [pdfernhout.net]
      "As a software developer and content creator, I find it continually frustrating to visit web sites of projects funded directly or indirectly by government agencies or foundations, only to discover I can't easily im

  • What a waste of time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by njvack ( 646524 ) <njvack@freshforever.net> on Monday May 18, 2026 @03:33PM (#66149823)

    From the article:

    In a unanimous verdict, the jury in Oakland, California, federal court said Musk had brought his case too late. The jury deliberated less than two hours.

    Eleven days of testimony to discover the statute of limitations had expired, which should have been trivial to calculate? And, as far as I can tell, the judge warned them about well in advance? My God. What a colossal waste of everyone's time. I hope court fees were hefty indeed.

    • Saw this too. A bit confused the judge let it go to trial. I forget what it is called, but I thought judges ruled on simple matters like this. And agreed. an absolute colossal waste for the legal system which is already under duress. Imagine how many people are sitting in jail waiting their turn for time in court with billionaires sucking all the oxygen out of the system. Musk should pay dearly for this, like a million dollars for each minute of court time that was wasted and the payout to fund lawyers for

      • Re:What a waste of time (Score:5, Insightful)

        by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Monday May 18, 2026 @04:06PM (#66149881)
        It is called summary judgement, and I honestly thought that was good news that it went to trial, and the court could find justification to stop business in America from being allowed to steal non-profits. I guess I was wrong. This will only make things worse in the long run.

        • The court bypassed the "justification to stop business in America from being allowed to steal non-profits" question, finding that Musk should have thought of that earlier. I guess he was otherwise engaged at the time, was that when he was taking Twitter over and gutting it?

          • And committing a securities violation for not disclosing his stake when it reached the threshold. And then donnie arranges for a sweetheart deal that hopefully a judge is going to put the kabash on. https://www.reuters.com/legal/... [reuters.com] As a minimum, absolute minimum, it should be the 150M to disgorge the profit he made by breaking the rules. I'd argue it should be 3X the 150M or 450M to make a point that you don't flagrantly violate SEC rules that even I know about. And I have never been in a position to hold

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dfghjk ( 711126 )

          "...the court could find justification to stop business in America from being allowed to steal non-profits..."

          That was not even an option in this case. The result you hoped for was for Musk to win an enormous amount of money and possibly control over OpenAI, which you would then happily see as a for-profit corporation.

          "I guess I was wrong."
          That's not surprising, nor is your incessant dishonesty.

        • Does anyone still take 'non-profit' as a legitimate meaning anymore? So many are usually scams that it is just a big red flag now.

        • This will only make things worse in the long run.

          It'll do no such thing. No precedence has been set that applies to any case other than those wondering if statute of limitations is still a thing.

      • Normally a statute of limitations question would have been addressed earlier in the case. I can only guess a main point of contention is when did Musk know that OpenAI was going to convert to for-profit. If the defense had to establish at trial Musk knew in 2019, then that would be why the trial was needed. If Musk can claim he found out in 2021, then he was within the statiute.

  • Ha Ha (Score:2, Funny)

    by ThurstonMoore ( 605470 )

    Eat shit Elon.

  • Honest question... (Score:3)

    by Excelcia ( 906188 ) <slashdot@excelcia.ca> on Monday May 18, 2026 @03:40PM (#66149833) Homepage Journal

    Anyone with legal experience answer, I'm curious how a question of statute of limitations went to the jury. Is that not a decision of law? And if that was a major factor, how was that not decided first? A full trial wasn't needed to decide whether or not there was even grounds to sue.

    • Re:Honest question... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by taustin ( 171655 ) on Monday May 18, 2026 @05:32PM (#66150043) Homepage Journal

      The jury was advisory anyway, the actual decision will be made the the judge (who agreed, as she said she was likely to do beforehand).

    • I can only guess that both sides disagreed about when Musk learned that OpenAI was converting and that fact had to be decided by the jury.

    • From what I understand, they were judging when Musk knew what he knew.

      For fraud, for malpractice, for many similar things the statute of limitations is worded as something like "when the damaged person knew, or reasonably should have known."

      This is pretty common with medical malpractice. You may not learn your doctor screwed up for years, but the statute is generally just one year.

      So the jury had to decide at what point Musk reasonably should have known it was time to sue, a judge can't just decide.

  • Since this trial centered around capital, the jury should have issued the death penalty for everyone since that is capital punishment. Just kidding. Lol. :)

  • And the winners are... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Monday May 18, 2026 @04:27PM (#66149915)
    Lawyers.

    • Well, and in this case, Sam Altman and Elon Musk got a lot of publicity. And at that level, any publicity is good publicity.

    • Ironically, aside from the jury, they seem to be the least sleazy people involved in this particular case. I know that's not saying much at all.

    • Well this is always the case when two oversized rich children have a tantrum and take it to the courts.

  • It’s a pity they can’t both lose.
  • I've missed several episodes of this soapy, so completely lost track.

  • Where's that chainsaw now, Lord Boo-foo?

    It turns out you have no peers amongst Oakland citizens who actually show up for jury duty and have taxable income..

    Seems to me you have quite enough money, even if you are superior to life on Earth,

    Morally bankrupt, imperious, and callous are totally free.

    Welcome to the human race.

  • 'Waited too long' is a lame cop-out. (Score:3)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Monday May 18, 2026 @06:28PM (#66150177) Homepage
    I guess now everyone will be acting like sue it or lose it because penalizing continued wrong-doing now has a time limit from the starting date of the initial wrong-doing.

    • I guess now everyone will be acting like sue it or lose it because penalizing continued wrong-doing now has a time limit from the starting date of the initial wrong-doing.

      1) If there was not any statute of limitations, your neighbor from 50 years ago can sue because you never returned his hammer as he claims. Good luck trying to find witnesses and documents from that long ago. 2) The time limit is from when the wrong-doing is found out, not when it happens.

    • Errr statute of limitations has always been a thing codified in law. Nothing has changed as a result of this case.

  • Let them kill each other for all I care. Even if the non-Musk one isn't an asshole today, he will be tomorrow.
  • I was sick of the daily stories after two.

  • I was hoping to find out whether this is a viable business model for new startups, but they only ruled that it took too long for Musk to bring the lawsuit.

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