Elon Musk loses historic lawsuit.

Elon Musk lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman. Photo: AFR .

On May 18th (early morning of May 19th Vietnam time), in a unanimous ruling at a federal court in Oakland, California, a nine-member jury declared that billionaire Elon Musk had filed his lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman too late. According to Reuters , the deliberation process was swift, lasting less than two hours.

Specifically, the entire jury advised that Musk had exceeded the statute of limitations when he filed the lawsuit in 2024, despite knowing about the issues since 2021. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California agreed and dismissed the case.

Following the ruling, Elon Musk's lawyers announced in court that they reserved the right to appeal. Speaking to reporters after the ruling, lawyer Marc Toberoff said he would have strong grounds for appeal.

"This case is not over. The ruling, based on the statute of limitations, has factual elements but also requires important legal factors," Toberoff said.

Hours after the ruling, Elon Musk himself confirmed that he would appeal and would file his case with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – the largest federal appeals court in the US judicial system.

"The judge and jury never actually ruled on the substance of the case, but based their decision solely on a technical detail regarding the schedule."

No one following the case in detail could have doubted that Altman and Brockman actually enriched themselves by stealing money from a charity. The only question remaining is when they did it,' the billionaire wrote on X.

Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a non-profit organization, contributing at least $44 million in its early years. He left the company in 2018 after a power struggle. In 2019, OpenAI established a for-profit subsidiary to raise capital.

The South African billionaire argued that this process betrayed its original mission and asked the court to force OpenAI back to a non-profit model, demanding $130 billion in compensation, removing Altman and Brockman from the board of directors, and compelling them to return the profits earned.

Microsoft was also included in the lawsuit, accused of aiding and abetting the breach. The software giant's lawyers argued that the company could not and would not have aided the breach of fiduciary trust, pointing out that Musk himself had posted on X in September 2020 that "OpenAI is essentially controlled by Microsoft," suggesting he knew about the relationship years before filing the lawsuit.

This is the most high-profile public lawsuit in AI history, bringing together two of the most influential figures in the field to face off before a jury.

According to the description, Sam Altman and Grer Brockman, CEO and Chairman of OpenAI, were both present in the courtroom, while the Tesla CEO sat at the lawyers' table in the center of the room.