What The Court Will Actually Scrutinize in Elon Musk v. OpenAI; Clearing Up GPT-5’s Timeline

Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming the ChatGPT creator breached a founding agreement to develop artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity, not commercial interests, raises legal questions without clear precedent. It might not get very far.

One big question is whether private individuals or companies can sue nonprofit organizations for not following their missions. Musk must establish that he has been harmed and therefore has legal standing to sue. Musk contributed $45 million to help found OpenAI, the company said in a blog post after it was sued. OpenAI has since “twisted” that investment to benefit itself and Microsoft, “turning that [founding] agreement on its head and perverting OpenAI, Inc.’s mission,” Musk’s lawyers said in the complaint. 

But that might not be enough to establish standing, said Colleen Chien, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and the director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.