Elon Musk Narrows Lawsuit Against OpenAI and Sam Altman Ahead of Trial

Elon Musk has streamlined his legal case against OpenAI, dropping fraud allegations against the company and its co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. The remaining claims center on unjust enrichment and breach of charitable trust, with the trial set to start with jury selection on Monday in federal court in Oakland, California.

Musk seeks up to $134 billion in damages to be directed to OpenAI’s charitable arm and aims to restore the firm’s nonprofit status while removing Altman and Brockman from their leadership roles. The lawsuit stems from Musk's assertion that OpenAI abandoned its original nonprofit mission to benefit humanity after accepting billions in funding from Microsoft and restructuring as a for-profit entity.

OpenAI, Altman, Brockman, and Microsoft have denied the allegations, describing them as baseless. The proceedings will occur in two phases: a jury will provide an advisory verdict on the claims, followed by a judicial decision on remedies.

Musk co-founded OpenAI with Altman and others in 2015 but left the board in 2018. He later founded xAI in 2023, positioning it as a rival to OpenAI. In February, OpenAI rejected Musk's $97.4 billion bid to acquire its nonprofit assets. Court filings have revealed internal documents, including a 2017 diary entry from Brockman expressing concerns about Musk's leadership.

The entry stated Brockman viewed the situation as the only chance to separate from Musk and questioned if he was the ideal leader.

“This is the only chance we have to get out from Elon," wrote Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and a co-founder, in the autumn of 2017.”

In a separate development, Sam Altman issued an apology to the community of Tumbler Ridge, Canada, following a January mass shooting that killed eight people. OpenAI identified an account linked to the suspect through abuse-detection efforts but determined it did not meet the threshold for referral to law enforcement at the time.