Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is set to testify in a high-profile lawsuit where Elon Musk claims OpenAI abandoned its nonprofit mission and used $38 million in donations to become a massive for-profit company. Nadella's testimony will dig into why Microsoft decided to invest, with 2018 emails suggesting they only jumped in once OpenAI's tech looked like it could actually make money. The trial will also feature OpenAI CEO Sam Altman later this week.
Musk claimed Microsoft's $13 billion investment pushed OpenAI toward profits instead of public good, but OpenAI counters that Musk left after failing to take control, and then started his own AI company, xAI.
A jury will weigh in by the week of May 18, 2026, with a final ruling after that.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will then make the final ruling on both liability and remedies after hearing the jury's opinion. She has indicated she will likely follow their advice.
The trial has laid bare the internal strife within a circle of elite Silicon Valley engineers, investors and executives in the years leading up to the high-profile launch of the ChatGPT chatbot in 2022.
The Tesla and SpaceX founder is calling for OpenAI to revert to its original status as a nonprofit -- a move that would impact its position in the global artificial intelligence race against Anthropic, Google and China's Deepseek.
OpenAI counters that Musk left voluntarily after failing to seize majority control and has since become the company's direct competitor through his own AI venture, xAI.
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