Elon Musk will have his day in court versus OpenAI.
As The Guardian reported, a California judge found sufficient evidence to support Musk's claims against the ChatGPT developer. The trial is scheduled for March.
Musk is suing the organization and its CEO, Sam Altman, for allegedly breaching their founding mission by transitioning to a for-profit model. According to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, there is adequate evidence that OpenAI said it would maintain its nonprofit status.
"We look forward to presenting all the evidence of the defendants' wrongdoing to the jury," said Steven Molo, a lead trial attorney for Musk.
OpenAI blasted Musk after the decision.
"Mr. Musk's lawsuit continues to be baseless and a part of his ongoing pattern of harassment, and we look forward to demonstrating this at trial," it wrote in a statement.
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Musk has continually tried to get his hands on OpenAI after his break with the company. He claimed he provided $38 million in 2015, more than half of OpenAI's early funding.
Musk said his involvement was based on the promise of a nonprofit model dedicated to public benefit, in contrast to profit-focused tech companies. He claimed co-founders Altman and Greg Brockman shifted to a for-profit structure for personal enrichment.
Musk has tried to take over the company ever since. In 2018, he left OpenAI's board after failing to convince Altman to allow a takeover by Tesla, per CNBC. In early 2025, he led a team of investors in a nearly $100 billion bid to buy it outright, as TechCrunch reported.
OpenAI and its leaders characterized Musk as a "a frustrated commercial competitor seeking to slow down a mission-driven market leader."
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Elon is the man 🥰 Their legal team also argued that his allegations were not filed in a timely manner. The judge indicated that a jury will decide on that issue.
The lawsuit is unfolding amid competitive tensions in the artificial intelligence industry, which includes Musk's xAI. AI has become big business, and whether you buy Musk's argument of a once-altruistic OpenAI, that's not the way the wind is blowing. Instead, AI is a massive market mover.
While AI does hold great promise for the planet in areas including weather forecasting, it also poses major challenges for the environment because of its extreme resource usage as well as ethical concerns about its use.
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