A nine-person jury was seated Monday in federal court in Oakland as Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI moved to trial. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will make the final ruling, with the jury serving in an advisory role.
Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, filed the civil suit in August 2024, alleging that Altman, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and major investor Microsoft stripped the company of its nonprofit identity for private gain. He invested roughly $38 million between December 2015 and May 2017 on the premise, he contends, that OpenAI would develop artificial intelligence for humanity rather than shareholders.
OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit lab. It moved to a capped for-profit structure in 2019 and completed a full conversion to a public benefit corporation in late 2025. It is now valued at about $852 billion. Musk initially sought over $100 billion in damages, with some filings citing $134 billion, but pre-trial rulings cut the scope of his claims. He has since dropped any personal award and is asking the court to direct any recovery to OpenAI’s charitable arm, reverse the for-profit conversion, and oust both Altman and Brockman. Days before opening arguments, his team also dropped the fraud counts, narrowing the case to breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.
OpenAI counters that the suit is a competitive attack. The company says Musk took part in for-profit restructuring talks as early as late 2017, demanded a Tesla merger or majority personal control, and departed when his terms were refused. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is expected to testify. The liability phase runs through May 21.
The trial’s outcome matters for Spartanburg. BMW Manufacturing’s Spartanburg County plant — where a humanoid robot supported more than 30,000 BMW X3 builds over ten months in the company’s first U.S. physical-AI rollout — relies on the commercial AI ecosystem OpenAI helped build. USC Upstate launched institution-wide ChatGPT.Edu accounts in fall 2025 through a direct OpenAI partnership. A court order reversing that status could unsettle the licensing agreements behind those programs.
