The jury in Elon Musk v. Sam Altman is now deliberating, and if closing arguments are any indication, this case has been a disaster for everyone involved.

Musk sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman in early 2025, claiming they violated an original agreement to keep the company nonprofit and open source. He’s arguing breach of contract, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty. The trial wrapped up Wednesday with closing arguments that one observer called “an unbelievable demolition derby.”

Steven Molo, Musk’s lead attorney, struggled through his closing. He called co-defendant Greg Brockman “Greg Altman.” He told the jury Musk wasn’t seeking monetary damages, which prompted the judge to correct him on the record. And while Molo insisted the trial had revealed “many liars,” he apparently couldn’t tie that claim to Musk’s actual legal theories.

It was, by most accounts, not great.

What the jury actually has to decide

The legal questions here are narrower than the public drama suggests. Musk claims OpenAI’s 2015 founding documents created a binding contract that required the company to remain nonprofit, keep its research open, and prioritize safety over profit. OpenAI argues those were informal understandings, not enforceable agreements.

Contract law is unforgiving on this point. If there’s no clear offer, acceptance, and consideration, there’s no contract. Emails about “the mission” and early conversations about structure probably don’t meet that bar, especially when the people involved were sophisticated parties who knew how to write binding agreements when they wanted to.

The fraud and fiduciary duty claims are even harder. Fraud requires proof that Altman made specific false statements that Musk relied on to his detriment. Fiduciary duty requires proof that Altman owed Musk a legal obligation to act in his interest. Given that Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018 and has spent the last several years building a competing AI company, both claims face serious obstacles.

None of this means Musk’s complaints about OpenAI’s direction are wrong. The company did pivot to a capped-profit structure. It did sign an exclusive cloud deal with Microsoft. It did stop releasing model weights. Those are all real changes, and reasonable people can disagree about whether they’re good for AI safety or just good for OpenAI’s valuation.

But “you changed direction in ways I don’t like” isn’t a tort. And the jury instructions won’t ask whether OpenAI betrayed the spirit of its mission. They’ll ask whether Musk can prove specific legal violations.

Why everyone looks bad

This trial has not been kind to anyone’s reputation. Musk comes across as a jilted ex-board member who can’t accept that OpenAI moved on without him. His complaint reads less like a legal document and more like a lengthy subtweet. His lawyer’s closing argument didn’t help.

OpenAI, meanwhile, has spent weeks defending its transformation from scrappy nonprofit to $150 billion commercial juggernaut. Internal emails introduced at trial show executives openly discussing how to manage Musk’s ego, how to position the Microsoft deal, and how to spin the capped-profit structure. None of it is illegal, but it doesn’t exactly scream “we’re here to benefit humanity.”

Altman has testified carefully, but the trial has surfaced years of private messages that make the company’s public messaging look selective at best. Again, not illegal. Just not a great look when you’ve built a brand on openness and safety.

What happens next

The jury will decide whether Musk proved his claims by a preponderance of the evidence. That’s a lower standard than “beyond a reasonable doubt,” but it still requires actual proof, not vibes.

If Musk wins, the remedies could range from monetary damages to some kind of injunctive relief, though it’s hard to imagine a court ordering OpenAI to restructure itself back into a pure nonprofit. If OpenAI wins, Musk pays his legal bills and moves on.

Either way, the trial has clarified one thing: the early days of OpenAI were messier and more informal than anyone wants to admit. Founding documents were vague. Governance was loose. People said different things in public than they did in private. That’s normal for startups, but it’s a problem when one of the founders is Elon Musk and the stakes are this high.

The jury has the case now. We’ll know soon whether Musk’s grievances translate into legal liability, or whether this was just an expensive way to air old grudges in public.