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Musk sues OpenAI for $134B over broken nonprofit promises

Jury trial set for April 27 after judge finds "plenty of evidence" of fraud·January 7, 2026

Elon Musk has taken his former AI venture to court in a lawsuit that could reshape the future of artificial intelligence governance. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Musk alleges that OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman broke promises that the organization would remain a nonprofit dedicated to benefiting humanity. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled on January 7, 2026 that four of Musk''s claims survived summary judgment: breach of charitable trust, constructive fraud, fraud, and unjust enrichment. Musk donated approximately $38 million to OpenAI between 2015 and 2018, representing roughly 60 percent of its early funding, based on assurances the technology would be open-source and nonprofit-controlled. The lawsuit seeks between $79 billion and $134 billion in damages from both OpenAI and Microsoft, which invested $13.75 billion in the company. Microsoft was named as a defendant for allegedly aiding and abetting OpenAI''s departure from its nonprofit mission. A jury trial is scheduled to begin April 27, 2026 and run through the end of May.

Key facts

Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Microsoft in the U.S

District Court for the Northern District of California

On January 7, 2026, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that four claims survived summary judgment: breach of charitable trust, constructive fraud, fraud, and unjust enrichment The judge stated there was 'plenty of evidence' supporting Musk's allegations that he received assurances about OpenAI's nonprofit mission.

Musk donated approximately $38 million to OpenAI between 2015 and 2018, which represented roughly 60 percent of the organization's early funding. These donations were made based on assurances that OpenAI would remain a nonprofit organization and that its AI technology would be open-source, meaning freely available to the public rather than proprietary and commercially controlled.

The lawsuit seeks between $79 billion and $134 billion in damages. This range reflects OpenAI's current estimated valuation and the profits Musk alleges were improperly generated by converting a nonprofit into a for-profit enterprise. If successful, it would be one of the largest damage awards in American legal history and could fundamentally restructure OpenAI's corporate organization.

Microsoft was named as a defendant for allegedly 'aiding and abetting' OpenAI's departure from its nonprofit mission through its $13.75 billion investment. Musk argues that Microsoft's massive investment was incompatible with OpenAI's original nonprofit structure and that Microsoft knowingly participated in converting the organization away from its charitable purpose.

OpenAI was founded in December 2015 as a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company

Its original charter stated the organization's mission was to ensure artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity

In 2019, OpenAI created a capped-profit subsidiary called OpenAI LP to attract investment while claiming the nonprofit parent retained control Critics argue this structure effectively turned a charity into a commercial enterprise.

A jury trial is scheduled to begin April 27, 2026 and is expected to run through the end of May 2026. The trial will take place before Judge Gonzalez Rogers in the Northern District of California. The jury will decide whether OpenAI's founders made binding promises to Musk about the organization's nonprofit status and whether those promises were broken.

The breach of charitable trust claim is particularly significant because it treats Musk's donations as charitable contributions made with specific conditions about how they would be used. If the jury finds OpenAI breached this trust, it could establish precedent that donors to nonprofit technology organizations can enforce promises about how their money is spent, even after the organization changes its corporate structure.