A federal judge in Oakland ruled this week that Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI will proceed to a jury trial beginning April 27, 2026. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected OpenAI's motion to dismiss, finding "ample evidence" supporting Musk's fraud claims. The ruling came days after thousands of pages of discovery material were unsealed, including depositions from Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Mira Murati, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
What emerged from those documents depends entirely on who's reading them.
The diary problem
Musk's legal team obtained personal journal entries from Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president and co-founder, dating to late 2017. The entries captured Brockman wrestling with the organization's future structure during a period when leadership was reassuring Musk of their commitment to nonprofit status.
One entry, written after a November 6, 2017 meeting with Musk where leadership affirmed their nonprofit commitment, reads: "cannot say that we are committed to the non-profit. don't want to say that we're committed. if three months later we're doing b-corp then it was a lie."
Another: "it'd be wrong to steal the non-profit from him. to convert to a b-corp without him. that'd be pretty morally bankrupt."
Days later, the same journal: "it would be nice to be making the billions."
Judge Gonzalez Rogers cited these entries specifically in her ruling. During Brockman's deposition, attorneys pressed him about a passage where he wrote "Financially, what will take me to $1B?" When asked if his secondary motivation was to become a billionaire, Brockman replied: "I believe that as a—one thing I was definitely motivated by was the idea—I definitely had as a motivation that, yeah, potentially getting to $1 billion."
Context as defense
OpenAI fired back with a blog post titled "The truth Elon left out," alleging Musk's team cherry-picked the evidence. The company provided fuller context for the same journal entries, pointing to passages Musk's filing omitted.
Brockman's notes also include: "Ilya feeling like we morally should not be kicking elon out, and should be trying to make the non-profit work and convince him to stay."
OpenAI's position is straightforward: everyone, including Musk, recognized by late 2017 that the nonprofit couldn't raise the capital needed for AGI research. The question was what structure would work. Musk didn't object to a for-profit conversion. He wanted to control it.
According to OpenAI's earlier disclosure, Musk created a Delaware public benefit corporation called "Open Artificial Intelligence Technologies, Inc" in September 2017 as the proposed new structure. He demanded majority equity, initial board control, and the CEO position. When OpenAI's leadership refused those terms, he walked.
"The current structure provides you with a path where you end up with unilateral absolute control over the AGI," Brockman and Sutskever wrote to Musk at the time. "The goal of OpenAI is to make the future good and to avoid an AGI dictatorship."
What the money reveals
The unsealed documents included text messages from November 2023, during the chaotic weekend when Altman was briefly ousted. OpenAI's COO Brad Lightcap texted Altman and Nadella about employee equity: paying out all employees would require $25 billion, or $29 billion if including Ilya Sutskever's vested units.
The $4 billion difference represents Sutskever's stake at OpenAI's November 2023 valuation. At the company's current reported $500 billion valuation, that same percentage would be worth substantially more.
Sutskever voted to fire Altman. Whatever his reasons, they cost him personally. His October 2025 deposition described preparing a 52-page memo accusing Altman of "a consistent pattern of lying, undermining his execs, and pitting his execs against one another." Much of the supporting evidence came from then-CTO Mira Murati.
The board reinstated Altman within days. Sutskever left OpenAI months later to start Safe Superintelligence.
The legal terrain
Musk's core claim is that OpenAI's leadership induced his donations through false promises to remain nonprofit, knowing they intended to convert. OpenAI counters that Musk knew about conversion discussions from the start, participated in them, and only objected when he couldn't get control.
Both statements can be simultaneously true, which is why this case is going to trial.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers acknowledged the evidence is "circumstantial" but deemed it sufficient for a jury. "Part of this is about whether a jury believes the people who will testify and whether they are credible," she said during the January hearing.
Several factors complicate each side's position.
For Musk: He proposed the for-profit structure. He created the legal entity. He demanded control. When rejected, he left and predicted OpenAI would fail. OpenAI claims it offered him equity in the capped-profit structure multiple times. He declined. Now he's suing over a conversion he arguably initiated.
For OpenAI: Brockman's diary suggests leadership was publicly affirming nonprofit commitment while privately planning otherwise. Whether that constitutes fraud depends on timing and intent that a jury will have to assess. The entries are awkward regardless of context.
The attorneys general of California and Delaware approved OpenAI's restructuring in October 2025. The company is now a public benefit corporation with the nonprofit foundation holding a 26% stake. That approval doesn't immunize OpenAI from fraud claims about past conduct, but it removes one avenue of attack.
What a jury will decide
The trial is scheduled for four weeks beginning April 27. A pretrial conference is set for March 13. Key witnesses will likely include Altman, Brockman, Musk, and possibly Nadella.
Musk is seeking unspecified monetary damages from "ill-gotten gains." His original contribution was approximately $38-45 million, depending on how indirect contributions are counted. OpenAI's motion for summary judgment noted that Musk "did not make those donations" directly, using an intermediary. The judge rejected that argument for standing purposes.
The statute of limitations presents another variable. Fraud claims in California generally have a three-year window. When Musk's alleged fraud began affects whether he filed in time. The judge indicated she may bifurcate the trial, having the jury first determine when fraud occurred before addressing other claims.
Microsoft is also named as a defendant. The judge found "considerable evidence raising a triable issue of fact that Microsoft had actual knowledge beyond vague suspicion of wrongdoing." Microsoft's attorney argued at the hearing that there was no evidence the company "aided and abetted" OpenAI.
The public relations war
Both sides have taken the fight beyond the courtroom. Musk has posted excerpts from unsealed documents on X, his social platform. OpenAI has responded with blog posts adding context. When Musk made an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to acquire OpenAI in February 2025, Altman responded on X: "no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want."
Musk replied with one word: "Swindler."
The unsealed depositions show the relationship was fraught long before the lawsuit. In texts from February 2023, Altman wrote to Musk: "well, you're my hero and that's what it feels like when you attack openai." Musk's response: "I hear you and it is certainly not my intention to be hurtful, for which I apologize, but the fate of civilization is at stake."
Also in the unsealed materials: matching New Year's Day 2018 emails from Brockman and Sutskever to Musk, BCC'd to each other, apparently coordinating their respective expressions of gratitude. Sutskever called Musk "the most overwhelmingly competent person in the world." Brockman wrote it was "an honor to work alongside you."
Six weeks later, Musk resigned from the board.
What's actually at stake
The trial outcome matters beyond the principals involved. Nonprofit-to-profit conversions are common in tech, but this one involves the organization at the center of the AI race. A jury finding of fraud could establish precedent for how charitable commitments constrain corporate evolution.
OpenAI calls the lawsuit "baseless and a part of his ongoing pattern of harassment." The company argues it's already one of the best-resourced nonprofits ever, with the OpenAI Foundation controlling for-profit operations.
Musk operates xAI, a direct competitor. His lawsuit, xAI's growth, and his political influence as a top adviser to President Trump create obvious questions about motivation. Those questions don't make his claims false. They also don't make them true.
Twelve jurors in Oakland will decide in April.
