Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI delivered their closing arguments on Thursday in a landmark federal trial in Oakland, California, that could reshape the future of one of the world's most influential artificial intelligence companies — and determine whether its transformation from nonprofit to for-profit enterprise was a betrayal of its founding principles or a necessary evolution.

Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI who invested $38 million in its early years before departing its board, filed suit in 2024 accusing CEO Sam Altman, company president Greg Brockman, and major investor Microsoft of breaching a charitable trust and unjustly enriching themselves at the expense of OpenAI's original humanitarian mission. The nine-person jury must first decide a threshold question: whether Musk filed his lawsuit within the applicable statute of limitations. If the jury finds he waited too long, presiding Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the US District Court has signalled she would likely direct a verdict in favour of the defendants.

Musk's attorney Steven Molo focused his closing remarks squarely on Altman's credibility, telling jurors that five witnesses — including former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, former chief technology officer Mira Murati, and two former board members — had called Altman a liar under oath.