Jury: Musk waited too long to sue OpenAI; $130B relief blocked

An advisory jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on May 18, 2026 concluded that Elon Musk waited too long to bring breach-of-charitable-trust and unjust-enrichment claims against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman. Jurors found the claims time-barred, which prevents Musk from obtaining the monetary and leadership remedies he sought if the court adopts the advisory verdict.

Musk helped found OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015 and left its board in 2018. He filed the lawsuit in 2024, alleging the organization’s later shift toward profit-oriented structures and large investments from Microsoft violated commitments made at its founding. Jurors determined he had known about the relevant changes years earlier and therefore delayed too long to sue.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is expected to accept the advisory finding. If she does, the liability phase of the case would be dismissed and Musk’s requests for more than $130 billion in damages, the removal of Sam Altman and other structural remedies would be effectively off the table in this case.

Market participants showed limited immediate reaction to the verdict. Bitcoin and major altcoins remained steady and meme-coin measures did not show a sharp sell-off. Tesla shares experienced short-term volatility while investors processed the outcome. Musk’s xAI unit continues development separate from the OpenAI litigation.

Musk’s legal team has indicated an appeal is likely. The advisory finding addresses the timing of the claims and does not resolve the merits of whether OpenAI’s structural changes violated enforceable promises. The judge is expected to enter a final judgment in the coming days.

OpenAI maintains close commercial ties with Microsoft. Some private valuations cited by investors place OpenAI around $850 billion. The jury’s ruling removes, for now, the immediate prospect of altering OpenAI’s leadership or reversing past organizational decisions through this lawsuit.

Neither Sam Altman nor Elon Musk had issued public comments on the verdict as of this writing. Background filings show Musk donated tens of millions to OpenAI and argued in his complaint that later funding and corporate arrangements departed from the group’s original nonprofit mission, but the jury did not reach the underlying merits of those claims after finding them time-barred.