Opening arguments begin Tuesday in Elon Musk's lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI in U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif., a day after Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers seated a nine-person jury that will decide whether the world's most prominent artificial-intelligence company broke its founding promises in converting from a nonprofit into a for-profit firm now valued near $1 trillion.
The trial opens hours after a Wall Street Journal report that OpenAI has missed its own internal targets for revenue and user growth, a shortfall that drove shares of its largest infrastructure partners sharply lower in premarket trading and that gives new weight to the question at the center of Musk's case: whether the charitable mission he says he was promised has been replaced by a commercial machine that may not, in fact, generate the cash to feed itself.
In the courtroom
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and left its board in 2018, sued the company, Altman and President Greg Brockman in 2024, alleging they reneged on commitments to keep the lab a nonprofit. OpenAI has called the suit "baseless." Musk's lawyers said in January he should receive up to $134 billion in "wrongful gains," though Musk has since asked that any award be funneled back into the OpenAI charity. He is also seeking the removal of Altman and Brockman from their roles.
The jury was seated Monday after voir dire that exposed how unpopular Musk has become in the Bay Area. The Verge's Elizabeth Lopatto, reporting from the courthouse, quoted juror questionnaires describing Musk as "a greedy, racist, homophobic piece of garbage" and "a world-class jerk." Musk's lawyers sought to strike several jurors for cause. Gonzalez Rogers declined, saying, “The reality is that people don’t like him… Many people don’t like him, but that doesn’t mean that Americans nevertheless can’t have integrity for the judicial process.” The nine jurors seated include some who told the court they hold negative views of Musk or of AI but said those views would not color their reading of the facts.
Numbers behind the suit
The trial's stakes were redrawn in premarket trading Tuesday. Oracle, which has a $300 billion, five-year partnership to supply OpenAI with computing power, fell about 7.5 percent. Nvidia, Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices each dropped between roughly 2 percent and 5 percent. Qualcomm, which gained Monday on reports it is working with OpenAI on smartphone chips, gave back 3.5 percent. CoreWeave fell 7 percent, and SoftBank Group, one of OpenAI's largest investors, sank about 10 percent in Tokyo.
The selloff followed the Journal's report that OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has warned colleagues the company could struggle to fund future compute agreements if revenue growth does not accelerate. Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge wrote in a morning note that the report "raises questions about whether the firm can fulfill its massive infrastructure obligations."
A wider warning
NPR framed the case as a referendum on the AI buildout itself. "This is a clash of two enormous personalities in Elon Musk and Sam Altman," Casey Newton, founder of the tech newsletter Platformer, told the network. "And I think what is at stake is potentially the future of OpenAI and the future development of all AI." The trial overhang and a softening revenue picture together threaten the bullish base case priced into Oracle, Nvidia and CoreWeave through last week. No lean-right outlet was in today's pull on this beat, leaving the industry's defenders unrepresented in the day's reporting.
CNBC said it would be in the courtroom for opening arguments. A verdict could reshape both the governance of OpenAI and the contracts that bind a near-trillion-dollar valuation to the chipmakers and cloud providers selling into it.