Elon Musk, chief govt officer of Tesla Inc., throughout the US-Saudi Funding Discussion board on the Kennedy Heart in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025.
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Elon Musk is in search of as much as $134 billion from OpenAI and Microsoft, saying he deserves the “wrongful positive aspects” that they obtained from his early assist, in response to a court docket submitting on Friday.
OpenAI gained between $65.5 billion and $109.4 billion from the billionaire entrepreneur’s contributions when he was co-founding what was then a startup from 2015, whereas Microsoft gained between $13.3 billion and $25.1 billion, Musk mentioned within the federal court docket submitting forward of his trial towards the 2 corporations.
“With out Elon Musk, there’d be no OpenAI. He supplied the majority of the seed funding, lent his status, and taught all of them he is aware of about scaling a enterprise. A pre-eminent professional quantified the worth of that,” Musk’s lead trial lawyer Steven Molo mentioned in an announcement to Reuters.
OpenAI, in an announcement, referred to as it an “unserious demand” by Musk and mentioned it was a part of his “harassment marketing campaign” towards OpenAI.
Microsoft didn’t reply to a request for remark exterior enterprise hours on the quantity of compensation Musk is in search of.
Microsoft and OpenAI additionally file fits
In the course of the week, OpenAI referred to as the lawsuit “baseless” and a part of a “harassment” marketing campaign by Musk. A Microsoft lawyer has mentioned there is no such thing as a proof that the corporate “aided and abetted” OpenAI.
The 2 corporations challenged Musk’s damages claims in a separate submitting on Friday.
Musk, who left OpenAI in 2018 and runs xAI, a competitor to ChatGPT, alleges that ChatGPT operator OpenAI violated its founding mission by a high-profile restructuring right into a for-profit entity.
A choose in Oakland, California, dominated this month {that a} jury will hear the trial, anticipated to start out in April.
Musk’s submitting says he contributed about $38 million, 60% of OpenAI’s early seed funding, helped recruit employees, join the founders with contacts and lend credibility to the venture when it was created.
“Simply as an early investor in a startup firm might understand positive aspects many orders of magnitude higher than the investor’s preliminary funding, the wrongful positive aspects that OpenAI and Microsoft have earned – and which Mr. Musk is now entitled to disgorge – are a lot bigger than Mr. Musk’s preliminary contributions,” Musk argues.
The submitting says Musk’s contributions to OpenAI and Microsoft had been calculated by his professional witness, monetary economist C. Paul Wazzan.
Musk might search punitive damages and different penalties, together with a potential injunction, if the jury finds both firm liable, the submitting says, with out specifying what kind any injunction would possibly take.
In their very own submitting, OpenAI and Microsoft requested the choose to restrict what Musk’s professional might current to jurors, arguing his evaluation ought to be excluded as “made up,” “unverifiable” and “unprecedented” and as in search of an “implausible” switch of billions from a nonprofit to a former donor-turned-competitor.
The businesses additionally disputed Musk’s damages figures extra broadly, saying the professional’s method is unreliable and may mislead the jury.
