What’s behind Musk’s $134bn demand?

Tesla CEO and founder of AI firm xAI Elon Musk has asked a US federal court to award him $79 billion to $134 billion in damages, alleging that OpenAI and Microsoft defrauded him by abandoning OpenAI’s nonprofit mission and partnering with the software giant.

Musk’s lawyers filed the damages request a day after a judge denied OpenAI and Microsoft’s final bid to avoid a jury trial scheduled for late April in Oakland, California, according to multiple reports.

The filing cited calculations that showed Musk is entitled to a share of OpenAI’s current $500 billion valuation as he donated $38 million in seed funding during the founding stage of the company in 2015.

“Just as an early investor in a startup company may realise gains many orders of magnitude greater than the investor’s initial investment, the wrongful gains that OpenAI and Microsoft have earned -- and which Musk is now entitled to disgorge -- are much larger than Musk’s initial contributions,” the filing said.

According to court papers, Musk's side argued that $65.5 billion to $109.43 billions of alleged wrongful gains were made by OpenAI and $13.3 billion to $25.06 billion by Microsoft from Musk’s financial and non-monetary contributions, including technical and business advice. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied the allegations.

Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018, launched his own AI company in 2023, and sued OpenAI in 2024, challenging co-founder Sam Altman’s move to operate the company as a for‑profit entity.

“Musk’s lawsuit continues to be baseless and a part of his ongoing pattern of harassment, and we look forward to demonstrating this at trial,” OpenAI said in a statement, adding, “this latest unserious demand is aimed solely at furthering this harassment campaign.”

Meanwhile, Musk’s AI firm xAI is also suing Apple and OpenAI over an earlier integration of ChatGPT into Siri and Apple Intelligence as an optional add-on.

Musk alleged that Apple's App Store practices disadvantage rivals such as Grok, and the lawsuit has survived initial dismissal.