A federal jury on May 18 cleared OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, co-founder Greg Brockman and OpenAI itself of all liability in Elon Musk's landmark lawsuit accusing them of betraying the company's nonprofit mission. The unanimous verdict came after less than two hours of deliberation, with jurors concluding that Musk had waited too long to sue, making the statute of limitations the decisive issue.
Musk had sought as much as $134 billion in alleged ill-gotten gains, the removal of Altman and Brockman from OpenAI's leadership, and an unwinding of the company's 2025 for-profit restructuring. The same statute-of-limitations ruling also defeated Musk's parallel claim that Microsoft aided and abetted Altman and Brockman in breaching duties to OpenAI.
Musk attorney Steven Molo told the court he was preserving the right to appeal but had not yet decided how to proceed. The verdict caps a three-week trial closely watched as a referendum on the AI industry's shift from open research labs to investor-backed corporate giants.