Closing arguments concluded on May 14 in Oakland federal court in the closely watched Musk v. OpenAI trial, setting the stage for jury deliberations to begin on Monday. Elon Musk's legal team made its final case that OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman betrayed the organization's founding nonprofit mission by converting to a for-profit structure and enriching insiders at the expense of the public interest.
The trial, which has captivated Silicon Valley and Washington alike, carries implications that extend far beyond the courtroom. A Musk victory could force Altman's removal as CEO, unwind billions of dollars in Microsoft's investment, and establish legal precedent that would reshape how AI companies structure themselves. Musk's lawyer apologized to the jury for his client's absence during closing arguments -- Musk was in China accompanying President Trump on the Beijing trade summit.
What happened
Musk's lead attorney delivered a two-hour closing argument asserting that OpenAI was founded in 2015 on an explicit promise to develop artificial general intelligence as an open-source, nonprofit enterprise for the benefit of humanity -- and that Altman systematically dismantled those commitments after discovering the technology's enormous commercial potential. The legal team presented internal emails, board meeting minutes, and text messages purportedly showing Altman maneuvering to convert OpenAI into a capped-profit entity, culminating in the controversial restructuring that gave Microsoft a $13 billion investment stake and exclusive commercial licensing rights. OpenAI's defense countered that the organization's charter always contemplated commercial activity, that Musk himself had pushed for a for-profit structure in 2017 before departing the board, and that the current structure best serves OpenAI's mission by providing the capital needed to compete in the increasingly expensive AI race. The defense also highlighted Musk's own competing AI venture, xAI, arguing that the lawsuit is a strategic move to hamstring a rival rather than a genuine concern for nonprofit governance. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who presided over the trial, instructed the jury on the applicable legal standards for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and unjust enrichment before dismissing them for the weekend.
Why it matters
This trial is the most significant legal test of AI governance in the industry's brief history. If the jury sides with Musk, the implications cascade across the entire AI ecosystem. An order removing Altman as CEO would throw OpenAI into leadership chaos at a moment when it is racing to develop GPT-5 and competing with Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and xAI for AI supremacy. Unwinding the Microsoft partnership would potentially strand the $13 billion investment and disrupt Azure's AI services, which are now embedded in the operations of hundreds of thousands of enterprises worldwide. More broadly, a Musk victory would establish a legal precedent that nonprofit-origin technology organizations cannot easily convert to for-profit structures without the consent of their original founders and donors, chilling a pathway that several other AI research labs have been contemplating. If OpenAI prevails, the verdict would validate the for-profit conversion model and likely accelerate similar restructurings across the AI sector.