Judge clears path for Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft trial

A federal judge in Oakland has cleared major portions of Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI Inc. and Microsoft Corp., ruling that enough factual allegations survive to send the case to a jury in late April 2026. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers denied motions by both defendants to dismiss claims that Musk says show OpenAI abandoned its founding charitable purpose and misled early donors.

Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI who left the board in 2018 and later launched his own AI company in 2023, filed the suit in August 2024. He alleges that when he provided roughly $38 million in seed-era support he was given enforceable assurances that OpenAI would operate as a nonprofit and keep its research open source. He accuses OpenAI of breach of trust and fraud tied to the organization’s restructuring and the acceptance of billions in outside funding. Against Microsoft, which invested $1 billion in OpenAI’s for-profit subsidiary in 2019 and has been reported to amass a roughly $135 billion stake, Musk advanced aiding-and-abetting and unjust enrichment claims; the court dismissed the unjust enrichment count against Microsoft while leaving aiding-and-abetting for the jury.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers highlighted internal OpenAI communications cited in Musk’s filings as central factual material. Court documents quoted co-founder Greg Brockman writing, “We’ve been thinking that maybe we should just flip to a for profit. Making the money for us sounds great and all.” Another private note read in part, “cannot say that we are committed to the non-profit. don’t want to say that we’re committed. if three months later we’re doing b-corp then it was a lie.” The judge concluded that, while the overall record remains unclear, those internal statements create disputed factual issues appropriate for a jury.

The court also rejected OpenAI’s argument that Musk lacked standing because he routed his contribution through an intermediary, observing that adopting OpenAI’s position “would significantly reduce the enforcement of a large swath of charitable trusts.” In the courtroom the judge emphasized the case’s trajectory by saying, “This case is going to trial.” The hearing lasted about 90 minutes and was described as occasionally testy as the parties sparred over legal limits and factual inferences.

OpenAI issued a statement calling the lawsuit “baseless and a part of his ongoing pattern of harassment” and said it looks forward to demonstrating that at trial, while remaining focused on the OpenAI Foundation. Musk’s lead counsel expressed appreciation for the court’s consideration and indicated they are preparing for trial. Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The ruling keeps alive questions at the heart of a broader debate over governance and accountability in fast-growing AI firms: whether early assurances to donors can bind later corporate decisions and how charitable trust principles apply to organizations that convert to more capitalized structures. A jury will now be asked to weigh competing accounts of intent, internal communications and the legal effect of OpenAI’s restructuring.

Pretrial scheduling and logistical details remain to be resolved by the court as the parties move into more intensive discovery and trial preparation ahead of the late April 2026 jury date.