A California jury ruled on Monday that Elon Musk waited too long to sue OpenAI, removing a major legal obstacle to the ChatGPT developer’s plans for a potential stock market listing that could value the company at about $1 trillion.

Reuters reported that jurors in Oakland deliberated for less than two hours before unanimously deciding Musk’s claims fell outside the three-year statute of limitations. US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers immediately adopted the advisory verdict and warned that any appeal would face significant difficulty because the dispute centred on factual findings.

Musk sued OpenAI, chief executive Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman in 2024, alleging they abandoned the organisation’s original non-profit mission after he contributed $38 million in its early years. He claimed the company improperly created a for-profit structure and accepted tens of billions of dollars from Microsoft and other investors.

Following the verdict, Musk said on X that Altman and Brockman had “enrich[ed] themselves by stealing a charity” and described the ruling as a “calendar technicality”. Marc Toberoff, Musk’s lawyer, told reporters the case represented “a brand new formula for Silicon Valley” in which non-profits could be transformed into profit-driven companies benefiting executives and investors.

OpenAI’s legal team argued throughout the three-week trial that Musk knew about the company’s commercial ambitions years before filing suit and only pursued litigation after launching rival artificial intelligence business xAI in 2023. William Savitt, OpenAI’s lead lawyer, told reporters the lawsuit was a “hypocritical attempt to sabotage a competitor” that jurors had “kicked exactly where it belongs”.

The case became a high-profile examination of the governance and financing of advanced artificial intelligence companies. Testimony revealed that Microsoft has spent more than $100 billion on its partnership with OpenAI, while internal messages and witness evidence exposed disagreements between Musk and Altman over control of the organisation and its future structure.

Reuters reported that the proceedings damaged both men’s public credibility, with witnesses questioning Altman’s honesty and Musk accusing OpenAI of abandoning AI safety in pursuit of profit. During closing arguments, Musk lawyer Steven Molo told jurors: “Sam Altman’s credibility is directly at issue. If you don’t believe him, they cannot win.”

Analyst Dan Ives from Wedbush told Reuters the verdict removed “a significant overhang” from OpenAI’s expected initial public offering, calling the outcome “a huge win for Altman and OpenAI”.

---