Artificial Intelligence
Musk Vs Altman Heads To Court & OpenAI’s Future May Hang In The Balance
Updated on Tue, Apr 28, 2026
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What started as a dispute between OpenAI’s co-founders has now evolved into a high-stakes legal fight involving billions of dollars, corporate control, and the future structure of OpenAI itself.
TL;DR
- Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI heads to trial Monday.
- Musk claims OpenAI abandoned its original nonprofit mission for private profit.
- He wants OpenAI restored to its former nonprofit structure.
- Sam Altman and Greg Brockman could lose leadership roles if Musk wins.
- Microsoft is also named in the lawsuit.
- A jury begins deliberations on May 12, though the judge will make final decisions on remedies.
The trial arrives at a critical moment for OpenAI as the company faces growing competition in the AI race while reportedly eyeing major future financial milestones, including a potential IPO.
If Musk wins, those ambitions could be severely disrupted. OpenAI could be forced to reverse its current corporate structure, while Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman could be removed from leadership positions.
Such a scenario could create an opening for Musk’s own AI startup, xAI, to gain ground in an increasingly crowded market.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives described the legal showdown as a spectacle investors will closely monitor.
“This is a tech soap opera that all investors will be watching as Musk vs Altman enters the MMA ring,” said Ives. “We believe there will be a lot of dirt and slings thrown around in court between Musk and Altman, and that is not a good thing for anyone involved, but Musk has made this personal.”
Why Elon Musk Says OpenAI Betrayed Its Original Mission And What He Wants
Musk helped launch OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit and says he contributed roughly $44 million during its early years. However, he exited the company in 2018 after what was described as a bitter power struggle.
Following his departure, OpenAI created a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 to raise capital. In 2025, that structure evolved further into a public benefit corporation overseen by its nonprofit foundation, a transition approved by regulators in California and Delaware.
Musk argues that OpenAI abandoned its original mission of developing safe, open-source AI for public benefit and instead prioritized financial gain.
His lawsuit alleges breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment, while also accusing Microsoft of helping facilitate OpenAI’s shift toward commercialization.
He is seeking more than $130 billion in damages, though Musk has said any awarded funds should go to OpenAI’s nonprofit arm rather than to him personally. Ahead of this, he also wants the company to remove Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, as it moves back to a nonprofit business model.
OpenAI strongly disputes those claims, arguing that Musk himself once supported a for-profit structure. The company also claims he left because he failed to gain complete control and says the lawsuit is driven by competition and personal resentment.
Jury Selection Could Be One Of The Trial’s Biggest Challenges
Finding impartial jurors may prove difficult given the celebrity status of both Musk and Altman.
Legal experts say many jurors, particularly in Silicon Valley, may already hold strong opinions about both executives and artificial intelligence itself.
Still, legal experts note that jurors do not need to be unfamiliar with either figure, they simply need to evaluate the evidence fairly.
To address concerns around bias, the judge has reportedly called in a jury pool roughly three times larger than what is typical for civil cases.
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The trial is expected to feature hundreds of pages of emails, private messages, and internal documents from some of tech’s biggest names.
Witnesses expected to testify include Musk, Altman, Brockman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, former OpenAI executives, and Shivon Zillis, a former OpenAI board member.
Ultimately, while jurors will weigh liability, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will decide what penalties or remedies, if any, are imposed.
By May 12, a group of everyday jurors could help determine whether OpenAI continues on its current path, or is forced into one of the biggest corporate resets the AI industry has ever seen.
First published on Tue, Apr 28, 2026
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