A California judge said that Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI (OPENAI) and Sam Altman can proceed to a jury trial over claims that the company breached its founding nonprofit mission.
During a federal court hearing in Oakland, California on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said, “This case is going to trial.” There was “plenty of evidence,” she remarked. “It’s circumstantial, but that’s how these things work.”
Without issuing an official ruling, Rogers made it clear that she intended to reject OpenAI’s (OPENAI) attempts to dismiss the 17-month-old case that Musk filed against the San Francisco startup that he helped create in 2015.
“Part of this is about whether a jury believes the people who will testify and whether they are credible,” Gonzalez Rogers said.
In his lawsuit filed in 2024, Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk accused OpenAI (OPENAI) of misleading him in its decision to abandon its original nonprofit mission and structure in favor of a profit-oriented model, including through its partnership with Microsoft (MSFT).