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Musk Absent as Closing Arguments Begin in OpenAI Trial; Jury to Deliberate Monday

• By John K. Waters
• 05/14/2026

Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI delivered closing arguments Thursday in federal court in Oakland, California, with Musk's lead attorney opening by apologizing to the jury for his client's absence: the Tesla CEO was in Beijing accompanying President Donald Trump on a state visit to China.

"This is something he is passionate about," Musk's attorney Steven Molo told the jury, according to CNBC. Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman were both present in the courtroom.

The jury received its final instructions from U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Thursday and is expected to begin deliberations on Monday. The court does not sit on Fridays.

Molo centered his closing argument on the credibility of Altman, telling jurors that five witnesses who had known and worked alongside Altman for years called him a liar under oath during the trial, according to the Associated Press. Those witnesses, Molo said, included former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, former chief technology officer Mira Murati, and former board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley.

Molo also argued that OpenAI's executives had sought personal gain through stock grants and financial arrangements with entities in which they held stakes, in violation of their obligations to the nonprofit's charitable mission, Axios reported. Because Musk, Altman, and Brockman never signed a formal contract specifying the terms of Musk's donations, Molo asked jurors to treat the founders' emails, public statements, and OpenAI's own website as constituting a binding charitable trust.

"The evidence proves Elon donated those funds for a specific charitable purpose," Molo said, according to the AP, describing that purpose as the development of safe, open-source artificial intelligence for public benefit.

OpenAI's lawyers countered that Musk's roughly $38 million in donations were not subject to specific conditions and that the organization has continued to pursue its founding mission despite changes in its corporate structure. They also argued that the lawsuit was filed too late under the applicable statute of limitations and that Musk's own conduct during and after his time at OpenAI should preclude his prevailing, Axios reported.

OpenAI has argued throughout the trial that Musk turned against the company only after failing to gain control of it, and that his lawsuit is intended to damage a competitor to his own artificial intelligence venture, xAI.

The day's proceedings were not without friction between the judge and Musk's legal team. In a terse exchange while jurors were out of the room, Judge Gonzalez Rogers sharply criticized Molo for suggesting to jurors that Musk was not seeking money in the lawsuit, according to the AP. While Musk abandoned a personal-damages claim before the trial began, he is still seeking an unspecified sum from OpenAI's nonprofit arm. The judge told Molo he must either retract the statement or "drop your claim for billions of dollars." The parties later agreed that the judge would issue a correction to the jury.

The jury's role in this case is advisory. Judge Gonzalez Rogers is not bound by the verdict and may overrule it. A separate phase of the proceedings, to be held before the judge rather than the jury, will determine what damages should be imposed if the ultimate ruling favors Musk.

In an unusual procedural arrangement, the damages phase is set to begin Monday and run concurrently with the jury's liability deliberations, according to ABC7. If the jury returns a no-liability finding before the damages testimony concludes, the damages proceedings would end at that point.

The jury faces several threshold questions before it can reach the central issues in the case. Jurors must first decide whether Musk filed his lawsuit within the applicable time limit. OpenAI has argued that Musk waited too long and cannot claim harms that occurred before August 2021. Judge Gonzalez Rogers wrote in a court filing last month that if the jury finds the lawsuit was filed too late, she would be highly likely to accept that finding and direct a verdict for the defendants, according to the AP.

If the jury finds the case was timely filed, it must then determine whether a charitable trust existed and whether OpenAI and its executives breached it, and whether Altman, Brockman, and OpenAI unjustly enriched themselves at Musk's expense. For Microsoft, which Musk added as a defendant in 2024, the jury must decide whether the company aided and abetted any such breach.

Musk is asking the court to remove Altman and Brockman from their roles and to require OpenAI to unwind its restructuring. He is also seeking disgorgement of profits, which he has said he would direct to OpenAI's charitable arm rather than keep for himself, according to the AP and ABC7. Judge Gonzalez Rogers has not yet ruled on the extent to which Musk may pursue non-monetary remedies.

The lawsuit, filed in 2024, stems from OpenAI's founding in 2015, when Musk, Altman, Brockman, Sutskever, and others launched the organization as a nonprofit research laboratory dedicated to developing artificial intelligence safely and for broad public benefit. Musk departed the board in 2018. OpenAI subsequently created a capped-profit subsidiary and later a public benefit corporation, citing the need for capital to compete with well-funded technology companies. Microsoft invested roughly $13 billion in the company and became its primary cloud and commercial partner. OpenAI has said its valuation now exceeds $850 billion.

During the three-week trial, jurors heard from Musk, Altman, Brockman, Sutskever, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor, and a number of other current and former executives.