The jury didn’t take long; after weeks of courtroom drama, they rejected Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Microsoft. 

Musk didn’t take it well. He fired off a post calling Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers a “terrible activist Oakland judge.” He later deleted it. 

Then he announced plans to appeal, insisting that Altman and Brockman had stolen a charity. But the trial ended up exposing Musk just as much as anyone else.

Musk’s Claims

Musk’s lawsuit centered on a legal idea called “breach of charitable trust.” His argument was simple on the surface. 

He donated money to OpenAI for a specific purpose: to build safe artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the benefit of humanity. Not for profit, not for private gain.

He claimed Altman and Brockman broke that agreement. They launched a for-profit arm of OpenAI and made money from it. Musk said that was a betrayal.

He also accused them of “unjust enrichment,” getting rich off a charity they were supposed to serve.

It sounds like a strong case, but it fell apart in court. And some of the reasons why had everything to do with Musk’s own behavior.

Also read: The Night Elon Musk Grabbed a Painting and Left OpenAI

The Tesla Incident

One of the most damaging moments came from Greg Brockman’s testimony. He described a 2017 episode that raised serious questions, not about Altman, but about Musk himself.

Brockman said Musk asked him to bring a team of OpenAI’s top researchers to Tesla’s headquarters to help Tesla’s struggling Autopilot team. 

Brockman described the Tesla workers as “demoralized.” The visit was meant to fix that. The team Musk wanted included some of OpenAI’s top talent. 

Andrej Karpathy, Ilya Sutskever, and Scott Gray were there. These were world-class AI researchers, paid for by charitable donations meant to advance safe AI research, not help a private car company.

Sutskever reportedly told Tesla’s team that collecting 10,000 images of a tricky driving scenario could solve their software problem. 

Musk even asked Brockman to recommend which Tesla employees to fire. Brockman said no to that one.

A second source, familiar with the situation, confirmed Brockman’s account. The shocking part is Tesla never paid OpenAI back for those researchers’ time.

Expert Opinion

Dorothy Lund, a law professor at Columbia University, told TechCrunch the arrangement likely wasn’t legal. 

She called it “a bit rich” for Musk to sue over a breach of charitable trust when he appeared to be redirecting charitable resources for his own company’s benefit.

That’s a pointed observation. The very thing Musk accused Altman of doing, using a nonprofit’s assets for private gain, was something Musk himself appeared to have done.

Desire for Control

The trial also revealed another uncomfortable truth. In 2017, Musk spent significant time and energy trying to gain sole control of OpenAI’s planned for-profit arm.

He used classic pressure tactics. At one point, he reportedly offered his co-founders free Teslas. At another, he threatened to cut off his donations if they didn’t give him total control. 

It went back and forth. His lawyers tried to argue there was a meaningful difference between a “small adjunct” for-profit and the full commercial operation OpenAI eventually became. 

But that argument had problems. OpenAI’s team showed the court that large nonprofits with significant commercial arms are actually quite common.

The picture that emerged was this: Musk wasn’t against a for-profit model in principle. He was against one he didn’t control.

Also read: “Maybe OpenAI Should Go to My Kids” – Elon Musk

Andrej Karpathy

After the Tesla visit, Andrej Karpathy left OpenAI and joined Tesla. OpenAI’s lawyers framed this as a direct result of Musk recruiting a key researcher away from the very organization he was supposed to be leading. 

At the time, Musk was co-chair of OpenAI’s board. A board member is supposed to act in an organization’s best interest. 

Recruiting its star talent to a competitor, even your own company, cuts against that duty.

Also read: Andrej Karpathy Leaves His Own Startup to Join Anthropic

A Lost Case

Even setting aside the unflattering revelations, Musk’s lawsuit had a fundamental legal problem. He filed it too late.

Courts have statutes of limitations for a reason. People make long-term decisions based on what they believe is legal. 

If someone waits years before filing a lawsuit, unraveling all those decisions can cause more harm than good.

The jury was asked a pointed question: Before August 5, 2021, should Musk have known that OpenAI was operating outside its charitable mission?

The answer, based on the trial evidence, was yes. Musk knew. He was there, he was involved. In some ways, he was doing the same things he accused others of doing.