According to TechCrunch, a U.S. judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and its co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman will proceed to a jury trial, tentatively scheduled for March 2025. Musk sued in 2024, alleging the company betrayed its original nonprofit mission to benefit humanity by pursuing profits instead. The lawsuit details that Musk was an early backer, investing about $38 million based on assurances OpenAI would remain a nonprofit, and even made an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to buy the company in February 2025, which was rejected. OpenAI transitioned to a for-profit “capped-profit” model in 2019 and completed a formal restructuring in October 2025, creating a Public Benefit Corporation. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said evidence supports Musk’s claim that leaders assured him the nonprofit structure would be maintained.
Musk vs. Altman: The Real Trial
Let’s be honest, this case is as much about a personal feud as it is about contract law. The timeline is telling: Musk left the board in 2018 after his CEO bid was rejected in favor of Sam Altman. Since then, he’s been a constant critic and now a competitor with his own company, xAI. That unsolicited $97.4 billion takeover bid in early 2025? That wasn’t just business. It was a power play, a dramatic attempt to reclaim the kingdom. And when Altman said no, the lawsuit became the next logical weapon. OpenAI‘s response calling it “baseless” and part of a “pattern of harassment” just pours gasoline on that narrative. The jury won’t just be weighing legal documents; they’ll be judging a very public, very expensive clash of tech titans.
The Impossible Mission of a Nonprofit AI?
Here’s the thing: Musk’s case hinges on a promise that may have been impossible to keep. Building frontier AI isn’t like running a food bank. The compute costs are astronomical, and you need to pay Silicon Valley-level salaries to attract the talent. OpenAI’s argument will surely be that the 2019 shift to a “capped-profit” model—and the later Public Benefit Corp structure—was a necessary evil for survival and scale. They needed billions, not millions. So, was it a betrayal of principle, or a pragmatic adaptation to reality? The jury gets to decide. But it raises a brutal question for the whole industry: can truly world-changing, beneficial AI ever be built without eventually courting massive capital and the compromises that come with it?
Winners, Losers, and the AI Market
Forget the courtroom for a second. The real impact of this saga is on the competitive landscape. This very public, messy divorce has been a fantastic recruitment tool for xAI. Musk can position himself as the idealist who stayed true to the original vision, poaching disillusioned talent. For OpenAI, the constant drama is a distraction they don’t need while battling Google, Anthropic, and others. And for the market? It probably doesn’t change much in the short term. The AI arms race is fueled by investor cash and customer adoption, not corporate structure. But a decisive win for Musk could spook investors in other “mission-driven” startups, making them triple-check their founding documents. Basically, it makes the already-risky business of AI even riskier.
