A judge denied Musk’s request to halt OpenAI’s business transition but granted a fast-tracked trial for next year, keeping the lawsuit’s claims against the company in play.
Musk fires again
Elon Musk’s legal battle against OpenAI has entered a new phase after a U.S. judge denied his request for an immediate injunction to halt the company’s transition into a for-profit entity.
While the ruling allows OpenAI to continue operating under its current structure, the case is far from over, with the court granting a fast-tracked trial set for the fall of 2025.
Musk’s lawsuit, filed earlier this year, accuses OpenAI of abandoning its original mission to develop artificial intelligence for public benefit in favor of private investors.
OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, have rejected Musk’s allegations, arguing instead that transitioning to a for-profit model is necessary to raise the substantial capital required to compete effectively in the costly AI industry.
The company also insists Musk’s lawsuit is driven primarily by competitive motivations rather than genuine ethical concerns.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Musk’s evidence — primarily internal emails — failed to meet the legal threshold for an injunction. However, she acknowledged that the case raises important legal questions regarding OpenAI’s transition.
“Given the public interest at stake and potential for harm if a conversion contrary to law occurred, the court is prepared to expedite trial to the fall of 2025 solely on that claim and potentially the interrelated contract-based claims,” she wrote.
The ruling comes amid high-stakes financial maneuvering. Recently, Altman outright rejected a $97.4 billion takeover bid from Musk and his associates, responding with a blunt “no thank you.”
Meanwhile, reports indicate that SoftBank is in talks to lead a $40 billion investment round that could push OpenAI’s post-money valuation to $300 billion — dwarfing the $75 billion valuation that Musk’s rival AI startup, xAI, is reportedly seeking.
Despite the setback, Musk’s legal team remains optimistic. “We look forward to a jury confirming that Altman accepted Musk’s charitable contributions knowing full well they had to be used for the public’s benefit rather than his own enrichment,” said Marc Toberoff, Musk’s attorney.
Legal dispute highlights broader questions
Musk’s lawsuit raises deeper questions about who controls artificial intelligence and whether companies that start as nonprofits can legally shift to for-profit models.
Musk claims that OpenAI’s transition from a nonprofit to a “capped-profit” model — and now to a structure with no profit limitations — constitutes a violation of its original mission.
When OpenAI launched in 2015, Musk was one of its largest donors, contributing millions of dollars to support its nonprofit vision. The goal was to develop AI for the public good, avoiding the kind of profit-driven motives that could lead to reckless commercialization.
However, in 2018, Musk left OpenAI after the board rejected his proposal to fold the company’s for-profit division into Tesla.
Since then, OpenAI has increasingly relied on external investors, including a reported $13 billion from Microsoft, cementing its shift into the private sector.
OpenAI has framed the lawsuit as an attempt to stifle competition, noting that Musk only began criticizing its structure after launching his own AI startup, xAI.
The company has also pointed to Musk’s past emails, which show he once explored merging OpenAI’s for-profit arm into Tesla.
“That would have been great for his personal benefit, but not for our mission or U.S. interests,” OpenAI told Business Insider.
Beyond the lawsuit, the case reflects the increasing costs of AI development. Training advanced models like GPT-4 costs hundreds of billions of dollars, making nonprofit funding models difficult to sustain.
OpenAI bets big on premium AI agents
Amid its legal battle with Musk, OpenAI continues its for-profit expansion, developing AI agents for software development, research, and professional services, with pricing ranging from $2,000 to $20,000 per month.
According to The Information, OpenAI’s upcoming AI agents will be tailored to different market segments based on complexity and capability.
The first tier targets “high-income knowledge workers,” offering advanced analytical tools at $2,000 per month.
A more advanced version, designed for software developers, provides automated coding support and debugging assistance at a monthly cost of $10,000.
At the highest tier, OpenAI is reportedly working on an AI agent capable of conducting “PhD-level research,” with an industry-leading price tag of $20,000 per month.
While the exact launch timeline remains uncertain, OpenAI’s investor SoftBank has reportedly committed $3 billion to the AI agent initiative this year alone, underscoring confidence in its profitability.
Beyond AI agents, OpenAI has also introduced Deep Research, an AI tool designed to synthesize vast amounts of information into research-level reports.
Meanwhile, the company has rolled out GPT-4.5 to ChatGPT Pro subscribers, describing it as its most advanced language model yet.
GPT-4.5 boasts improved pattern recognition, enhanced emotional intelligence, and fewer hallucinations—instances of incorrect information.
However, its increased size has made it more expensive to operate, with OpenAI adjusting API pricing to $75 per million input tokens and $150 per million output tokens.
Despite these advancements, GPT-4.5 has not outperformed all rivals. AI benchmarks indicate that models from companies like DeepSeek and Anthropic have surpassed OpenAI’s latest release in certain reasoning tasks.
