Jury tosses Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Source: NBC

OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal jury on Monday found that tech billionaire Elon Musk waited too long to bring his lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others, throwing out the suit that claimed Altman had unlawfully enriched himself from the organization Musk and Altman co-founded.

The jury found Altman, co-founder Greg Brockman and OpenAI not liable on all claims after a blockbuster three-week trial that has captivated the tech industry and could have reshaped the race to develop artificial intelligence.

On the same statute of limitations grounds, the jury also rejected Musk’s claim that Microsoft aided and abetted Altman and Brockman in allegedly breaching their duty to OpenAI. Microsoft was an early and large investor in OpenAI’s for-profit operation.

The verdict was unanimous. The jury began deliberating first thing Monday morning and reached its decision in less than two hours.

Steven Molo, a lawyer for Musk, said in court that the legal team was preserving Musk’s right to appeal but had not yet decided how to proceed.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/openai-elon-musk-case-verdict-rcna345655

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A jury finds that Elon Musk waited too long to bring his lawsuit against Sam Altman, throwing out the suit that claimed the OpenAI CEO had unlawfully enriched himself from the organization they helped to create. www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...

— Steve Herman (@newsguy.bsky.social) 2026-05-18T17:41:20.096Z

[DonCoquixote]

1. may they sure each other into mortal oblivion

Two of the main villains of the age

[ancianita]

2. Latest update from the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/05/18/technology/openai-trial-verdict-altman-musk

... But the nine-person jury in Oakland, Calif., didn’t rule on the merits of the argument.
Instead, it found that Mr. Musk did not bring his lawsuit until after the three-year statute of limitations expired, nullifying his claim. Mr. Musk filed his suit against the $730 billion artificial intelligence start-up in the summer of 2024, but the jury found that he was aware of the behavior discussed in his complaint against OpenAI as far back as 2021.

Mr. Altman is now free to solidify his control of OpenAI, which appears headed toward one of the largest initial public offerings in history. The company also will be free to pursue a data center expansion plan that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Mr. Altman, Mr. Brockman and Mr. Musk, all of whom attended portions of the proceedings, were not in the courtroom for the verdict.

The jury’s decision means that Microsoft, OpenAI’s chief partner and another defendant in the case, is also not liable for Mr. Musk claims. His suit accused Microsoft of aiding and abetting OpenAI in breaching its founding agreement.

Musk response: Marc Toberoff, one of Mr. Musk’s lawyers, gave a one-word comment on the decision: “Appeal.”

Major stakes: The trial’s outcome had the potential to upend the A.I. landscape. A win for Mr. Musk, who has his own for-profit lab, xAI, would have been a win for OpenAI’s competitors, including industry giants like Google and young companies like Anthropic, as well as international competitors such as China’s DeepSeek.

[Nasruddin]

8. I don't understand

Why is a jury "finding" this? Why isn't this a determination made by the judge before all the other trial activity takes place?

[ancianita]

9. Perhaps they'd pushed for a jury trial, and the jury'd been selected before the fact came to light,

as revealed in the NYT update:

Mr. Musk filed his suit against the $730 billion artificial intelligence start-up in the summer of 2024, but the jury found that he was aware of the behavior discussed in his complaint against OpenAI as far back as 2021.

Here's The Guardian's take:

The jury’s finding is a non-binding, advisory verdict that left Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers with ultimate power to issue her own ruling in the case. Gonzalez Rogers immediately said that she would agree with the jury’s decision and dismissed Musk’s claims.

“I think there’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding, which is why I was prepared to dismiss on the spot,” Gonzalez Rogers told Musk’s lawyer after the verdict.

The jury found that Musk’s lawsuit, which was filed in 2024, did not fall within the statute of limitations to bring his case. One of the key legal arguments in the trial surrounded whether the harms that Musk alleged took place – including his breach of charitable trust claim – occurred before certain dates. OpenAI argued that Musk was well aware of the company’s plans to pursue a for-profit structure as early as 2017 and therefore his case was filed outside the three-year limit.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/18/sam-altman-trial-victory-elon-musk-openai

[TomSlick]

11. I would expect the judge to make a determination of the statute of limitations in a motion to dismiss.

I have questions.

[Bluetus]

12. It is strange. And evidently this jury was "advisory" to the judge

but the jury decision was not binding. States may have their own tort procedures. I am not familiar with this one. My interpretation is that the judge allowed the jury to hear the case because, evidently, there is some question about the statute of limitations. The judge might have felt that getting that decision from the jury would make the judge's ruling stronger on appeal.

[Spazito]

3. Well, OpenAI will soon have to cough up megabucks to settle this...

Families of Tumbler Ridge, B.C., mass shooting victims suing OpenAI in California

Tumbler Ridge victims file lawsuits in California to pursue 'landmark damage awards'

The families of the victims of one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history are taking OpenAI and its co-founder Sam Altman to court in California "to pursue landmark damage awards," according to firm Rice Parsons Leoni & Elliott.

Lawyers say the Tumbler Ridge, B.C., shooter's ChatGPT account was banned for "disturbing content," which allegedly included planning violent scenarios, prior to the February tragedy, according to a news release from the firm.

"However, despite some 12 different OpenAI employees imploring the company to notify Canadian law enforcement about the Shooter’s plans, nothing else was done," the firm said.

snip

John Rice, lead Canadian counsel for the victims, said the Tumbler Ridge tragedy was avoidable.

"Based on what we understand the Shooter to have discussed with ChatGPT, this murderous rampage was specific, predictable, and preventable — and OpenAI had the chance to stop it," he said.

more

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/tumbler-ridge-b-c-mass-shooting-families-suing-openai-9.7181214

[LudwigPastorius]

4. "Altman Defeats Musk" is kind of like...

"Pubic Lice Defeat Gonorrhea".

[oasis]

5. Ha!

[ToxMarz]

6. I would get satisfaction from either of them losing, both giant schmucks, grifters, con men and assholes.

I more enjoy Musk losing though. Altmen probably has his day of reckoning coming anyway.

[ancianita]

7. Since Altman regained his position of CEO at OpenAI back in November, he'll benefit from the US Military like Musk has.

OpenAI provides artificial intelligence capabilities for the US military. The Pentagon has tapped OpenAI to deploy its advanced AI models across secure, classified military networks and decision-support systems. These systems are frequently integrated with Project Maven—the Defense Department’s flagship AI and intelligence-analysis program.

OpenAI's defense agreement explicitly restricts its AI from being used for controlling deadly, autonomous weapons, unconstrained domestic spying, or high-stakes automated lethal decisions. OpenAI is one of several tech companies (including Palantir, Google and xAI) contracted to supply "frontier AI" to build an AI-first fighting force.

https://openai.com/index/our-agreement-with-the-department-of-war/

Under Project Maven our US Military is now an AI military force. To learn more, this book is highly recommended.



For an overview, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Maven

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

10. Double dose of Ketamine tonight I guess

[LetMyPeopleVote]

13. This ruling made me smile

A downside of working so hard at having a public persona of being a greedy, annoying asshole is that’s how juries will see you.

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social) 2026-05-18T19:44:31.277Z