The showdown between Elon Musk and Sam Altman is headed to court — and it’s set to be a long one.
Oakland federal judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Tuesday scheduled jury selection in the case to start on Monday, April 27. She also cleared four weeks for the trial itself, which is now scheduled to end around May 22.
It’s the latest development in a clash of the tech titans that kicked off last year when Musk sued Altman over the ChatGPT maker’s partnership with Microsoft and shift toward a for-profit model. Musk, a founder and early supporter of OpenAI, claims he contributed $38 million to OpenAI over the years under the premise that it would maintain its original altruistic, nonprofit roots.
OpenAI has countered that Musk knew about its pivot toward a for-profit as early as 2018 and says its nonprofit arm still plays a central role in its governance. The company has blasted the lawsuit as baseless and has characterized it as part of a larger harassment campaign by Musk.
Last week, Judge Gonzalez Rogers rejected arguments by Altman’s lawyers to block the case from proceeding to trial, saying Musk had sufficient evidence to justify a jury trial.
“I think there’s plenty of evidence,” the judge said at a hearing on January 7. “It’s circumstantial, but that’s how these things work.”
Hundreds of exhibits were unsealed in the case last week, including a 2023 text that revealed tension in the two tech titans’ relationship before Musk filed his suit.
“I don’t think openai would have happened without you — and it really fucking hurts when you publicly attack openai,” Altman texted Musk in 2023.
Musk responded: “I hear you and it is certainly not my intention to be hurtful, for which I apologize, but the fate of civilization is at stake.”
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