Musk-OpenAI Trial Goes to Jury as Trust in AI Leadership Hangs in Balance

After three weeks of testimony and closing arguments that stretched late into Thursday afternoon, the Elon Musk v. OpenAI trial now rests with a nine‑person jury. Deliberations begin today — Monday, May 18 — in what CNBC has called the what's become 2026's trial of the year. The jury's verdict will be advisory, meaning Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will make the final decision on liability.

Musk is suing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, and Microsoft for $134 billion, claiming the company violated its original mission to operate as a nonprofit focused on developing AI for the benefit of humanity, as reported by Yahoo Finance. The remedies phase of the trial — where the judge hears arguments about what should happen if OpenAI is found liable — also begins today.

The trial has become a referendum on trust in AI leadership. "This is a fundamental question for a lot of tech journalists, policymakers, and more and more consumers, about all the AI labs," said Kirsten Korosec on TechCrunch's Equity podcast. "It's really come down to trust, because we don't have the insight, necessarily — these are all privately held companies, there's a lot behind the veil still."

The most damaging moment for Altman came when Musk's attorney, Steve Molo, grilled him about congressional testimony in which he claimed to have no equity in OpenAI. In fact, Altman held a stake through his former role at Y Combinator. Altman dismissed the discrepancy by claiming everyone understands what a passive VC fund investment means — a defense the opposing lawyer mocked as unrealistic for a congressional audience, TechCrunch reported.

The contrasting courtroom styles of Musk and Altman became a story of their own. Musk — who has a well‑documented history of public falsehoods — was combative on the stand, correcting his own prior statements with defiance. Altman adopted an affable, self‑improvement‑focused demeanor, playing what TechCrunch's Anthony Ha called a "semantics game," with Korosec describing his demeanor as someone who says "I'm working on it."

"So Elon Musk, in many, many scenarios and many instances, we can point to the fact that he put something out on Twitter that was a lie or a bit of a fib, and on the stand corrected the record," Korosec said on TechCrunch's Equity podcast. "But how he treated it was incredibly combative and very different than Altman who really took this attitude of, 'I'm working on it,' and tried to seem sort of affable."

Sean O'Kane, also on the Equity podcast, suggested Musk's primary motivation was to "sling mud at a perceived rival" who slighted him. Regardless of the verdict, he noted, all parties involved "came out looking somewhat worse."

The stakes are enormous and extend far beyond the courtroom. If Musk wins, OpenAI could be forced to restructure back to a nonprofit and unwind its commercial partnerships — including the lucrative relationship with Microsoft. Altman and Brockman could be forced off the board, according to Yahoo Finance's analysis. This would effectively decimate OpenAI's ability to fundraise at a time when the company is eyeing an IPO with an $852 billion valuation later this year.

There is also the IPO dimension. OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX are all racing toward public offerings that could be among the largest in history. "The anticipation is that OpenAI's IPO will be massive, $1 trillion now," Ahmed Banafa, a professor at San Jose State University, told Yahoo Finance. "Whoever will go first is going to set up the stage for what's going to happen to the other two."

Companies frequently pause or delay their filings during active litigation. A protracted legal battle could delay OpenAI's IPO, giving SpaceX — which filed its SEC declaration on April 1 and is targeting a listing as soon as June — a clear path to go first.

For the builder community that relies on OpenAI's APIs, models, and tools, the trial raises uncomfortable questions. If OpenAI is forced to restructure, what happens to API pricing, access, and the product roadmap? If Altman is removed, who steers the company's technical direction? The uncertainty alone could slow enterprise adoption of OpenAI's tools as companies wait to see how the governance questions resolve.

"I look at it as this is going to set up the tone for the AI infrastructure and governance," Banafa told Yahoo Finance. "A lot of the startups are going to look at this and say, we have to be very careful about our structure."

The broader industry implication is that the Musk‑OpenAI trial may set a precedent for how AI companies can transition from nonprofit research labs to commercial entities. Every AI startup with a nonprofit origin story — and there are many — is watching closely.

The Musk lawsuit is just one front in a multi‑front war for OpenAI. The company is also defending claims from authors that it illegally trained its models on copyrighted work. It faces lawsuits related to ChatGPT's role in a California college student's death and a shooting at Florida State University. Altman's outside business dealings are being probed by the House Oversight Committee, and some of OpenAI's own investors have expressed doubts about whether the company is worthy of its $852 billion valuation, according to Yahoo Finance.

All of this is happening against the backdrop of an AI industry that is increasingly scrutinized by regulators, lawmakers, and the public. The Musk trial, regardless of its outcome, has already surfaced uncomfortable truths about how the most important AI company in the world is governed — and who can be trusted to lead it.