Elon Musk sues OpenAI for $134 Billion — But he doesn't even want to keep the money

Elon Musk has never let a court filing speak for itself. Posting on X today, ahead of what promises to be one of the most dramatic corporate trials in recent memory, the world's richest man offered an unexpected assurance: “Btw, the proceeds of any legal victory in the OpenAI case will be donated to charity. I will in no way enrich myself.”

What Elon Musk Is Actually Claiming? Why the Numbers Are Staggering?

The lawsuit centres on the founding of OpenAI in 2015, which Elon Musk helped establish as a nonprofit with a clear and stated mission: to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, not private profit. He donated about $38 million to that cause, operating on the understanding that the technology would be held in public trust.

What happened next, Musk alleges, was a betrayal. Altman and other co-founders of OpenAI, he claims, fraudulently misled him about the company's intentions. Musk says they quietly engineered a transition to a for-profit model that ultimately generated enormous wealth for everyone except him.

His early contributions were treated as charitable donations rather than the seed investments they functionally were, whilst OpenAI staff accumulated billions. Musk is now seeking up to $134 billion in damages, which he characterises as the "wrongful gains" harvested from his foundational support.

According to The Information, citing economist C Paul Wazzan, OpenAI could owe Musk somewhere in the region of $109 billion — not a court judgment, but a calculation of what his early equity-like stake would be worth today had the company honoured its original nonprofit structure.

OpenAI Fires Back: 'Legal Harassment' From a Bitter Rival

OpenAI has not taken the lawsuit lying down. The company has dismissed Musk's claims as a calculated campaign of legal harassment designed to slow it down and give his rival AI venture, xAI, an advantage.

In a pointed blog post, OpenAI said: “Elon's latest variant of this lawsuit is his fourth attempt at these particular claims, and part of a broader strategy of harassment aimed at slowing us down and advantaging his own AI company, xAI.”

The company's counter-narrative is equally sharp. OpenAI alleges that Musk himself agreed the organisation needed to transition to a for-profit model, and that he only withdrew his support after executives refused to hand him total control of the fledgling lab — and rejected his proposal to merge it with Tesla. The $134 billion damages figure, OpenAI added, was an "unserious demand."

The Documents That Could Define the Musk vs OpenAI Trial

Whatever the eventual verdict, the Musk vs OpenAI case has already produced revelations that will keep AI historians occupied for years. A judge recently unsealed thousands of pages of discovery documents, including excerpts from OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman's personal notes from 2017.

One passage, cited by the judge in her decision to allow the case to proceed to trial, reads: "It'd be wrong to steal the nonprofit from [Musk]. To convert to a b-corp without him. That'd be pretty morally bankrupt."

OpenAI moved quickly to contextualise the quote, as reported by Time, arguing Musk's legal team had selectively deployed it to cast Brockman in an unflattering light, and that the passage referred to a scenario that "never happened." The judge was unmoved; the trial is going ahead.

Musk vs OpenAI: Trial Date, Key Witnesses and What Happens in Court

The Musk vs OpenAI case trial proceedings are scheduled to begin on 28 April and are expected to run through the end of May. The witness list reads like a who's who of the AI industry: Altman, Musk, Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member, are all expected to testify. Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella may also appear as a witness.

The judge has indicated that the jury's damages determination will likely be advisory only, meaning she will set the final figure herself after the trial concludes. She has already signalled scepticism about the $134 billion figure, suggesting it may rest on "numbers out of the air." One ruling has also confirmed that Musk's reported ketamine use will be off limits to OpenAI's legal team during proceedings.

Why This Trial Could Be Existential for OpenAI

The stakes extend far beyond courtroom drama. A ruling against OpenAI could prove catastrophic for the company at the precise moment it is attempting to turn a profit by 2029. A significant damages award could drain resources, derail its IPO ambitions, force Microsoft to divest its stake, or even unwind the company's current corporate structure entirely.

For Musk and xAI, by contrast, a victory would deliver both strategic and symbolic returns. It would validate his original argument that OpenAI abandoned its founding principles and potentially hobble his most formidable competitor in the race to build the world's most powerful AI systems.

xAI's Aggressive Push to Catch Up

As the legal battle approaches its climax, Elon Musk has been quietly, and not so quietly, preparing for a world in which xAI emerges as the dominant AI force.

The company is in the midst of a sweeping hiring campaign, recruiting top engineers and researchers and building a dedicated recruitment team that reports directly to Musk. Several co-founders have departed in recent months, and Musk has acknowledged early hiring missteps, revisiting past candidates as he restructures teams to improve the company's AI coding capabilities.

The broader rivalry with OpenAI is now playing out on multiple fronts simultaneously: in the courts over the fraud lawsuit, in the talent market where both companies compete aggressively for the same researchers, and in the consumer arena where ChatGPT and Grok vie for users and influence.