Opening arguments began April 28 in the Musk OpenAI civil trial in Oakland, with Musk’s lead attorney Steven Molo telling jurors that without Elon Musk’s $38 million in early funding and recruiting of top AI scientists, OpenAI would not exist, while Musk seeks up to $134 billion in wrongful gains to be funneled back to the company’s nonprofit arm.
Summary
- Musk OpenAI opening arguments began April 28 with lead attorney Steven Molo urging jurors to look past their preconceptions about Musk and focus on the financial and institutional record of OpenAI’s founding.
- Two claims survive the trial: breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment. The jury’s verdict is advisory only, with Judge Gonzalez Rogers making the final decision on both liability and remedies.
- The liability phase runs through approximately May 21, with Gonzalez Rogers targeting jury deliberations to begin around May 12 and each side allocated exactly 22 hours to present its full case.
Musk OpenAI opening arguments began on April 28 as CNBC reported that Musk, Altman, and Brockman all arrived at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland wearing suits, with Molo telling the nine-person jury that “without Elon Musk, there would be no OpenAI, pure and simple.” Molo urged jurors to set aside preconceived opinions, noting that “not everybody’s opinion is good, not everybody’s is bad.” As crypto.news reported, the nine jurors were seated on Monday after five hours of questioning during which many prospective jurors expressed dislike for Musk, with Judge Gonzalez Rogers acknowledging that “the reality is people don’t like him” while expressing confidence the selected jury would respect the judicial process.
Musk OpenAI Trial Enters the Evidence Phase on the Founding of a $852 Billion Company
The two surviving claims are breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment. Musk originally filed 26 claims in August 2024, but a series of pre-trial rulings and his own strategic decisions reduced the case to these two. Musk is not seeking to recover money for himself: in January he asked that any damages be funneled back into OpenAI’s charitable arm rather than paid to him personally, with the $134 billion figure representing what his lawyers characterize as wrongful gains by OpenAI’s for-profit business and Microsoft. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with Altman and others as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for humanity’s benefit. He left the board in 2018 after a dispute over control. In 2023, he filed his original lawsuit. OpenAI restructured in October 2025 as a public benefit corporation in which the nonprofit holds a 26% stake plus additional warrants, a structure OpenAI says preserved its charitable mission. Musk says it buried it. As crypto.news documented, Musk’s xAI company was valued at $250 billion when it merged with SpaceX in an all-stock deal in February 2026, and Musk has since required Wall Street banks competing for SpaceX’s $1.75 trillion IPO to purchase subscriptions to Grok, his AI chatbot, a move OpenAI has cited as evidence that the lawsuit is commercially rather than ethically motivated.
What the Trial Structure Means for the Outcome Timeline
Judge Gonzalez Rogers has divided the case into a liability phase and a remedies phase. She has allocated exactly 22 hours to Musk’s team and 22 hours to OpenAI and Microsoft combined, plus five hours for Microsoft’s separate defense, with those allocations covering all witnesses, opening statements, and closing arguments. The liability phase is expected to run through approximately May 21, with jury deliberations beginning around May 12. If the jury’s advisory verdict finds for Musk, the case moves to a remedies phase before Judge Gonzalez Rogers alone, who will determine the appropriate consequences. Among the remedies Musk is seeking are the removal of Altman and Brockman from OpenAI leadership, the unwinding of the October 2025 restructuring, and the redirection of profits to OpenAI’s nonprofit arm. OpenAI has said the lawsuit risks complicating its expected IPO, which Reuters has reported could value the company at $1 trillion.
OpenAI’s Defense and the Counter-Narrative
OpenAI’s legal team is expected to argue in its own opening statement that Musk was aware of and in some cases advocated for the for-profit conversion before leaving the board, that he pushed to fold OpenAI into Tesla before the 2018 departure, and that the lawsuit is a commercially motivated attempt to damage a direct competitor to xAI. As crypto.news tracked, OpenAI simultaneously faces a criminal investigation by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier over ChatGPT’s alleged role in advising the accused Florida State University shooter, adding a second legal front to what is already the company’s most consequential legal moment before its IPO. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said he expects the trial to result in “scrapes and bruises” rather than fatal damage, but added his characteristic note: “It’s Elon and never doubt him in these spots.”
Among the witnesses expected to testify over the trial’s four weeks are Musk, Altman, Brockman, former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, former CTO Mira Murati, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
