Topline

A jury declared Elon Musk filed his lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman too late in a Monday afternoon verdict, finding the defendants not liable for any of the claims and ending a dramatic court showdown between two of the AI industry’s leading billionaires—at least for now, as a Musk lawyer says he plans to appeal.

Musk filed a lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI in 2024, alleging Altman reneged on an initial promise to operate the AI company as a nonprofit for the public good, making claims of unjust enrichment and breach of charitable trust.

Musk’s claims, though, were subject to three-year statutes of limitations, and the jury ruled Monday after two hours of deliberation that he had missed the deadlines to file his lawsuit.

District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the jury’s ruling and tossed Musk’s claims, saying there is a “substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding.”

Marc Toberoff, a lawyer representing Musk, gave a one-word comment to reporters in the courtroom following the verdict: “Appeal.”

Toberoff invoked battles from the Revolutionary War during a press conference while discussing Musk’s intent to appeal, saying they “were major losses for Americans, but who won the war? And this one is not over.”

Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI who now runs competitor company xAI, and Altman both took the stand in the high-profile trial, which ran for three weeks.

Musk sought stiff penalties, seeking $150 billion in damages and to remove Altman and Greg Brockman, an OpenAI co-founder who was also named as a defendant, from leadership roles.