Commitment
Musk commits to Ninth Circuit appeal of OpenAI verdict
“I will be filing an appeal with the Ninth Circuit, because creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America.”
- Speaker
- Elon Musk
- Role
- CEO, xAI
- Occasion
- Post on X following the federal jury verdict in Musk v. Altman, May 18, 2026
- Spoken
Why it matters
A federal jury in Oakland dismissed Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and president Greg Brockman on May 18, 2026, finding that the claims fell outside the statute of limitations. The jury concluded in under two hours that Musk had been aware of OpenAI's plans to pursue a for-profit structure as early as 2017, making his 2024 lawsuit untimely. The court did not rule on whether Musk's core accusations — that Altman and Brockman breached a charitable trust and unjustly enriched themselves — were valid on the merits. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers immediately affirmed the verdict and dismissed all claims.
Falsifier: if Musk does not file a formal notice of appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Appellate court rules typically require a notice of appeal within 30 days of judgment. The commitment matters structurally because OpenAI has announced plans to go public at approximately a $1 trillion valuation; a pending Ninth Circuit appeal would sustain legal uncertainty over its for-profit corporate structure through that process. Musk's own company, xAI, is a competing frontier AI lab, and its parent entity SpaceX is separately reported to be planning an IPO in June 2026.