Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s court battle over the future of OpenAI – The Verge

Musk vs. Altman is here, and it’s going to get messy

2026-04-27T12:21:14-04:00

Might as well jump, as the poet David Lee Roth once said. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Elon Musk cofounded OpenAI, and then flounced off in a huff when he wasn't anointed CEO, leaving Sam Altman as the last power-hungry man standing. Now, Musk is back with a lawsuit, and a trial is scheduled to start in Oakland, California, on April 27th. Theoretically, it's a legal case about whether OpenAI defrauded Musk. But that's not really what we're all doing here. This is about mess.

Over the past couple of years, Musk's legal theories for punishing OpenAI have run the gamut from breach of contract to unfair business practices to false advertising. Now, he and Altman will be getting called to the stand at a particularly delicate time …

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Elon Musk is about to be a very busy boy!

2026-04-02T14:53:38-04:00

To be honest, I thought Elon Musk would confidentially file for SpaceX's IPO on the 20th of this month, rather than the 1st. But maybe that just means he's moved on to other numbers, and we should all mark our calendars for June 7th as an IPO date just in case.

Based on the April 1st filing, and the general length of an SEC review before the S-1 document becomes public, the earliest I am expecting a SpaceX IPO is June. (At least, assuming there is still anyone left at the SEC who wants to do their job instead of just glance at the first page of the filing, say, "Seems fine!" and then go out for a smoke break.) Of course, this process could …

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‘Sideshow’ concerns and billionaire dreams: What I learned from Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI

2026-01-17T08:28:39-05:00

This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week.

Elon Musk first sued OpenAI in February 2024. Despite OpenAI's repeated attempts to throw it out, the case is now headed to a jury trial on April 27th in Northern California federal court.

Musk's main allegation is that OpenAI and its leaders abandoned the company's original nonprofit mission that he funded. In turn, OpenAI has treated Musk's claims as sour grapes. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers recently decided that the case warranted going to trial, saying in court that "part of this …

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Elon Musk’s xAI is suing OpenAI and Apple

2025-08-25T12:41:16-04:00

Elon Musk is suing Apple and OpenAI over claims that their deal to build ChatGPT into the iPhone is stifling competition in the AI industry. In a lawsuit filed on Monday, the Musk-owned X Corp. and xAI also accuse Apple's Apple Store of "deprioritizing" rival chatbots and "super" apps, including Grok and X.

Musk's companies claim that iPhone users "have no reason" to download third-party AI apps because the company "force[s]" users to use ChatGPT as their default chatbot app when enabling Apple Intelligence. "Apple and OpenAI have locked up markets to maintain their monopolies and prevent innovators like X and xAI from competing," the compa …

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Inside Elon Musk’s messy breakup with OpenAI

2025-03-07T10:31:58-05:00

As OpenAI was ironing out a new deal with Microsoft in 2016 - one that would nab the young startup critical compute to build what would become ChatGPT - Sam Altman needed the blessing of his biggest investor, Elon Musk.

"$60MM of compute for $10MM, and input from us on what they deploy in the cloud," Altman messaged Musk in September 2016, according to newly revealed emails. Microsoft wanted OpenAI to provide feedback on and promote (in tech circles, "evangelize") Microsoft AI tools like Azure Batch. Musk hated the idea, saying it made him "feel nauseous."

Altman came back with another offer: "Microsoft is now willing to do the agreement …

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Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and Sam Altman again

2024-08-05T08:34:04-04:00

Elon Musk has revived his complaint against OpenAI after dropping a previous lawsuit, again alleging that the ChatGPT maker and two of its founders - Sam Altman and Greg Brockman - breached the company's founding mission to develop artificial intelligence technology to benefit humanity.

The new lawsuit filed in federal court in Northern California on Monday says that Altman and Brockman "assiduously manipulated Musk into co-founding their spurious non-profit venture" by promising that OpenAI would be safer and more transparent than profit-driven alternatives. The suit claims that assurances about OpenAI's nonprofit structure were "the hook …

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