A California federal jury nixed billionaire Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Monday, concluding that Musk filed his claims after the statute of limitations had expired. The jury returned its verdict after deliberating for just 90 minutes following a three-week trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who presided over the case, said that she agreed with the jury’s unanimous decision. “I’ve always said I would accept the jury’s verdict. I think there’s a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding,” Gonzalez Rogers said. Legal experts said the jury likely focused on whether Musk waited too long to file suit under California law. Vincent Joralemon, a senior fellow at UC Berkeley law school, told The New York Post that California imposes a three-year statute of limitations for breach of charitable trust claims and a two-year limit for unjust enrichment claims. “I’m guessing the jurors got into their room and said, ‘Does it seem like Musk knew about this in 2019?’ and everyone said ‘yes’ and then they go, ‘we’re done,'” he said. Musk brought the case in 2024, accusing Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman of betraying the organization’s original nonprofit mission by changing OpenAI to a profit-driven enterprise. OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit focused on developing artificial intelligence in a manner that would benefit humanity. Musk, who helped launch the organization and donated roughly $38 million before ultimately leaving the board in 2018, said OpenAI’s leadership abandoned that principle for financial gain. The SpaceX founder asked for $150 billion in damages — and promised to appeal when the jury decided against him. “Regarding the OpenAI case, the judge & jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality,” Musk said in an X post on Monday. “There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity,” he added. “The only question is WHEN they did it! 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.” Musk’s attorney Marc Toberoff also vowed to appeal the decision: “I have a one-word reaction: Appeal. This war is not over.” Toberoff argued that OpenAI improperly raised money as a publicly subsidized nonprofit before later restructuring into a for-profit operation “where the officers and directors of the charity enrich themselves to the tune of billions.” Elon Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, on today’s verdict in the OpenAI case: “I have a one-word reaction: Appeal. This war is not over. We firmly believe what happened with OpenAI was wrong on a very basic level that you can’t raise millions of dollars in a publicly subsidized… pic.twitter.com/D6x1Ja43mB — Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) May 18, 2026