Musk's OpenAI trial begins jury selection

Jury selection opened Monday in Oakland federal court in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. (houstonpublicmedia.org) (cnbc.com) The case started as Musk v. Altman in August 2024 in the Northern District of California, and both sides demanded a jury. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is overseeing the trial in Oakland. (courtlistener.com) Musk says OpenAI’s leaders broke the company’s founding promise to build artificial intelligence for humanity as a nonprofit, then shifted it into a profit-seeking business after he left the board in 2018. OpenAI says Musk knew the company needed a for-profit structure to raise the money and computing power required to compete. (houstonpublicmedia.org) (thestar.com.my) On Friday, April 24, Judge Gonzalez Rogers dismissed Musk’s fraud and constructive-fraud claims at his request. She left breach-of-charitable-trust and unjust-enrichment claims for trial, with opening arguments expected Tuesday, April 28. (thestar.com.my) Musk is seeking about $150 billion in damages, according to Reuters, and says any recovery should go to OpenAI’s charitable arm rather than to him personally. He is also asking the court to remove Altman and Brockman and unwind OpenAI’s for-profit restructuring. (thestar.com.my) (cnbc.com) OpenAI has called the suit “a harassment campaign” driven by “ego, jealousy and a desire to slow down a competitor.” The company says Musk is trying to gain leverage after launching xAI in 2023. (cnbc.com) The trial lands as OpenAI weighs a public listing and investors assess litigation risk around its governance. CNBC reported OpenAI is targeting a possible fourth-quarter market debut, while NPR said its valuation is approaching $1 trillion after ChatGPT’s rise. (cnbc.com) (houstonpublicmedia.org) The dispute also turns a 2015 partnership into a courtroom fight between two former allies who now run rival artificial-intelligence businesses. Musk left OpenAI, started xAI in 2023, and has spent months attacking Altman in public as the case moved toward trial. (houstonpublicmedia.org) (cnbc.com) For now, the first question is who will sit on the jury in Oakland. After that, jurors will hear whether OpenAI abandoned its founding mission or simply changed its structure to survive the cost of building cutting-edge AI. (thestar.com.my) (houstonpublicmedia.org)