Musk Absent From OpenAI Trial, Lawyer Apologizes

Closing arguments concluded on May 14, 2026 in the federal Musk v. Altman trial in Oakland, California, according to CNBC and MIT Technology Review. Elon Musk was not present, having flown to China with President Trump despite Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers's order that he remain available; his lead counsel, Steven Molo, apologized to the jury, saying, "This is something he is passionate about." OpenAI's counsel also raised the absence in closing, saying, per CNBC, "Mr. Musk isn't here today, my clients are here. They're here because they care about this." Musk is seeking as much as $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, payable to OpenAI's nonprofit, and wants the court to unwind the 2025 restructuring that converted OpenAI's for-profit subsidiary into a public benefit corporation and to remove Altman and Brockman from their roles. The nine-person jury, six women and three men, begins deliberating Monday and is expected to deliver an advisory verdict, which is not binding on the judge, who will ultimately decide the case.

Molo argued in closing that Altman and Brockman broke a promise to use Musk's donations to keep OpenAI a nonprofit dedicated to safely developing AI for humanity's benefit, and instead built a for-profit subsidiary that made them wealthy; he pointed out that seven of the nonprofit's eight board members also sit on the for-profit's board, and that the nonprofit only hired staff a month before trial and now does grant-making rather than research. OpenAI's counsel, Sarah Eddy, countered that no witness or evidence showed any conditions on Musk's donations or any promise to remain a nonprofit, that the restructured OpenAI still funds nonprofit work through the for-profit, and that Musk sued too late and mainly to hobble a competitor to his own AI company, xAI. Over three weeks of testimony, both sides also attacked the other's credibility: Musk's team highlighted testimony from former OpenAI leaders Ilya Sutskever, Mira Murati, Helen Toner, and Tasha McCauley that Altman had lied to them, and questioned his personal stake in Helion Energy, a nuclear-power supplier OpenAI considered buying from; OpenAI's side argued Musk was a power-seeker who wanted personal control over AGI development rather than a genuine safety advocate.

The verdict carries direct stakes for OpenAI's structure and roadmap: a ruling favoring Musk could disrupt OpenAI's push toward an IPO at a valuation approaching $1 trillion, while xAI is separately reported to be preparing its own IPO as part of SpaceX as soon as June, targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation. Separately, the US House Oversight Committee opened an investigation into Altman's potential conflicts of interest the week before closing arguments, and attorneys general from several states asked the SEC to review them. Legal scholars quoted by MIT Technology Review note the case leaves OpenAI's nonprofit oversight structurally weak regardless of outcome; Northwestern law professor Jill Horwitz said, "The public interest in the nonprofit loses, no matter who wins or loses this trial."

For those tracking AI-governance precedent, the case is less about a single company's cap-table dispute than a live test of whether nonprofit-controlled AI labs can convert to for-profit structures without a binding legal check, and of how courts weigh AI-safety rhetoric against corporate-control disputes. The advisory-verdict structure means the jury's judgment on credibility and promises may shape public perception well before the judge issues a binding ruling.

Watch for the jury's advisory verdict, expected as soon as next week, followed by Judge Gonzalez Rogers's own binding ruling; whether the judge addresses Musk's unexplained absence or the travel-permission question directly; and how markets and regulators respond if the ruling threatens OpenAI's IPO timeline or forces changes to its nonprofit governance structure.