{"id":28717,"date":"2026-05-15T13:01:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T13:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/musk-v-openai-heads-to-jury-after-scorched-earth-closing-arguments\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T13:01:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T13:01:25","slug":"musk-v-openai-heads-to-jury-after-scorched-earth-closing-arguments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/musk-v-openai-heads-to-jury-after-scorched-earth-closing-arguments\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk v. OpenAI heads to jury after scorched\u2011earth closing arguments"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Musk accuses OpenAI of hijacking his $38M \u201csafe, open AI\u201d nonprofit into a closed AGI cash machine for Altman and Microsoft; a jury now weighs trust, timing and power.<\/p>\n

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\n Summary<\/span>\n <\/div>\n
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  • Attorneys for Elon Musk and OpenAI delivered closing arguments Thursday in a federal courtroom in Oakland, capping a three\u2011week trial over whether OpenAI betrayed its founding promise to build safe, open AI as a nonprofit.<\/li>\n
  • Musk\u2019s lawyer cast the case as a straightforward breach of charitable trust, telling jurors that Sam Altman \u201ccannot be trusted\u201d and that Musk\u2019s roughly $38 million in early funding was diverted into a for\u2011profit AGI play that enriched OpenAI insiders and Microsoft.<\/li>\n
  • OpenAI\u2019s team countered that Musk \u201cabandoned\u201d the nonprofit in 2018, attached no binding conditions to his donations, and only sued after launching rival firm xAI, framing the lawsuit as sour grapes and an attempt to regain control over the AI race.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    <\/p>\n

    In his closing for Musk, attorney Steven Molo told the nine\u2011person jury that \u201cthe credibility of Sam Altman is central to this case,\u201d arguing that \u201cif you doubt him, if you do not find him credible, they cannot prevail. It\u2019s that straightforward.\u201d He walked jurors back through testimony from former insiders and board members to claim that Altman and co\u2011founder Greg Brockman quietly shifted OpenAI from a nonprofit charter to a profit\u2011maximizing structure while still marketing themselves as altruistic stewards of \u201csafe AI for humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Musk\u2019s side: \u201cYou cannot trust Sam Altman\u201d<\/h2>\n

    Molo reiterated that Musk donated around $38 million on the understanding that OpenAI would remain a charitable vehicle for open\u2011source AI research, telling the jury, \u201cThe evidence proves Elon donated those funds for a specific charitable purpose,\u201d namely \u201cto create a nonprofit for the development of safe AI that would be open\u2011source when applicable.\u201d He accused Altman, Brockman and Microsoft of \u201cunjust enrichment,\u201d pointing to the $13 billion Microsoft investment and OpenAI\u2019s 2025 recapitalization as proof that Musk\u2019s seed money had been leveraged into a closed, massively valuable AGI platform without his consent.<\/p>\n

    Musk\u2019s side has floated damages figures as high as $134 billion in earlier filings, but in court Molo tried to emphasize structural remedies: ousting Altman and Brockman, unwinding the 2025 deal, and forcing \u201cill\u2011gotten gains\u201d back into an OpenAI foundation. That line prompted a sharp rebuke from Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in a sidebar, after she suggested Molo was misleading jurors into thinking Musk was \u201cnot seeking any money,\u201d even though his team has repeatedly quantified the alleged wrongful gains.<\/p>\n

    OpenAI\u2019s side: \u201cHe never cared about the nonprofit \u2014 he cared about winning\u201d<\/h2>\n

    OpenAI\u2019s lead trial lawyer Sarah Eddy told jurors that Musk\u2019s narrative is fiction, arguing he \u201ceffectively abandoned OpenAI\u201d when he left in 2018 and never conditioned his donations on a permanent nonprofit structure. Eddy reminded the jury that multiple witnesses testified Musk did not insist on specific governance guarantees and instead pushed to take control himself, citing Sam Altman\u2019s account that Musk wanted \u201c90% of OpenAI\u201d and to be able to pass it to his children if he died.<\/p>\n

    \u201cHe never cared about the nonprofit structure,\u201d Eddy said. \u201cWhat he was really interested in was winning,\u201d casting the lawsuit as retaliation after Musk launched competing AI company xAI and fell behind in the commercial race. OpenAI\u2019s filings also stress timeliness: the defense argues Musk waited too long and \u201ccannot claim harms that occurred before August 2021,\u201d with Judge Gonzalez Rogers writing that if jurors agree he missed the statute of limitations, she is \u201chighly\u201d likely to direct a verdict for the defendants.<\/p>\n

    Microsoft\u2019s attorney Russell Cohen echoed that theme, telling jurors the company had \u201cno awareness\u201d it was participating in a breach of charitable trust and simply invested $13 billion into a for\u2011profit structure that regulators and OpenAI\u2019s board had already accepted.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    The nine\u2011member jury \u2014 six women and three men \u2014 will begin deliberations Monday, delivering an advisory verdict that Judge Gonzalez Rogers can adopt or override when she rules on liability and remedies. If she sides with Musk and orders a reversal of OpenAI\u2019s for\u2011profit pivot, the decision could blow up its planned IPO and rewrite how AI labs structure nonprofit \u201cfoundations\u201d around commercial AGI engines; if she rejects his claims on timing or trust grounds, it will be a judicial stamp of approval on the hybrid nonprofit\/for\u2011profit architecture the rest of the industry is now copying.<\/p>\n

    <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Musk accuses OpenAI of hijacking his $38M \u201csafe, open AI\u201d nonprofit into a closed AGI cash machine for Altman and Microsoft; a jury now weighs trust, timing and power. Summary…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28718,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28717\/revisions\/28718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}