A US federal jury has ruled against Elon Musk in his legal battle with OpenAI, delivering a major victory to the maker of the popular chatbot.
The ruling comes after a three-week trial in Oakland, California, in which Musk accused OpenAI of abandoning its original nonprofit mission and morphing into a profit-driven technology behemoth.
Elon Musk sued OpenAI chief Sam Altman, president Greg Brockman, the OpenAI Foundation, and tech giant Microsoft. He said OpenAI had “violated its founding principles” by placing commercial interests ahead of the goal of developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
But the jury ruled that Musk filed the lawsuit too late under US legal deadlines called “statutes of limitations”. The ruling meant that the court did not fully examine Elon Musk’s central allegations against the company.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers subsequently signed off on the jury’s suggestion, formally ending one of Silicon Valley’s most closely watched court cases.
Musk co-founded the company in 2015 and reportedly invested about $38 million in the company’s early years before leaving the organization following disagreements about its direction.
Since the arrival of ChatGPT in 2022, OpenAI has quickly emerged as one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies. Microsoft has poured more than $13 billion into the company, and analysts estimate OpenAI’s valuation has skyrocketed to nearly $850 billion.
“Elon Musk is attempting to damage a major competitor as his own artificial intelligence company, xAI, grows within the expanding artificial intelligence industry,” OpenAI lawyers charged.
Musk said after the verdict he would appeal the decision, arguing the jury never got to the merits of his claims. OpenAI also attacked the court and alleged it had misappropriated charitable donations intended for nonprofit research.
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The ruling removes a key legal hurdle for OpenAI as it continues to expand its AI offerings and considers a potential future stock market listing.
