A US judge has ruled that Elon Musk's high-profile legal battle against OpenAI and Microsoft can proceed to a jury trial, rejecting the tech firms' final attempts to have the case thrown out.
The Core of the Legal Dispute
The case, scheduled for a jury trial in late April 2026 at the District Court in the Northern District of California, centres on Musk's claim that OpenAI abandoned its founding principles. Musk, a co-founder who helped launch the AI research lab in 2015 and donated $38 million, argues the company breached two non-negotiable conditions tied to his contributions.
He contends that OpenAI was to remain a non-profit and that its technology would be open source. The lawsuit alleges the company reneged on these promises when it accepted billions from Microsoft and pivoted to a profit-driven model.
Internal Emails Fuel the Fire
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers' decision to allow the case to move forward hinges partly on internal communications from 2017. In a September email, board member Shivon Zilis told Musk that co-founder Greg Brockman wanted to keep the non-profit structure.
However, evidence presented shows that just two months later, Brockman privately expressed a different view. He wrote: “Cannot say that we are committed to the non-profit. Don’t want to say that we’re committed. If three months later we’re doing b-corp, then it was a lie”.
Musk's lawyer, Marc Toberoff, stated this confirms “substantial evidence that OpenAI’s leadership made knowingly false assurances to Musk.” The judge also acknowledged evidence suggesting Microsoft may have been aware of OpenAI's shift away from its original charitable commitments, allowing claims against the tech giant to proceed.
A Feud Years in the Making
This trial is the latest escalation in a long-running rift between former collaborators. Musk left OpenAI's board in 2018 and later founded xAI in 2023, a direct competitor. Tensions worsened in 2025 when OpenAI rejected Musk's unsolicited $97.4 billion offer to acquire its non-profit assets.
OpenAI has labelled the lawsuit as “baseless” and part of a pattern of harassment, vowing to demonstrate this at trial. Sam Altman has criticised the action as a “weaponisation of the legal system to slow down a competitor.” Meanwhile, OpenAI has warned investors to expect “deliberately outlandish, attention-grabbing claims” from Musk during the proceedings.
The trial, which could run into late May 2026, promises to be a landmark case. Its outcome may reshape not just the future of OpenAI but also set precedents for AI governance and corporate accountability in the rapidly evolving technology sector.
