SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 17: Elon Musk has escalated his legal fight with OpenAI and Microsoft, demanding damages ranging from $79 billion to $134 billion in what has become one of Silicon Valley’s most high-profile courtroom clashes over the future of artificial intelligence.

In filings submitted to a U.S. federal court, the Tesla CEO and founder of AI firm xAI alleged that OpenAI, which he helped launch nearly a decade ago, betrayed its original nonprofit mission by turning into a commercial powerhouse in close partnership with Microsoft. Musk claims this shift amounted to fraud, enriching OpenAI and Microsoft at the expense of the company’s founding principles.

The damages request came a day after a judge rejected OpenAI and Microsoft’s final attempt to block a jury trial, clearing the way for proceedings scheduled for late April in Oakland, California.

Central to Musk’s lawsuit is OpenAI’s rapid rise in value. Court papers cite valuations around $500 billion and argue that Musk, who contributed approximately $38 million in seed funding in 2015, deserves a proportionate share of that success. His lawyers compared his role to that of an early-stage investor whose modest initial stake later yields exponential returns.

“Just as an early investor in a startup may realize gains many orders of magnitude greater than the initial investment,” the filing states, “the wrongful gains earned by OpenAI and Microsoft — now subject to disgorgement — far exceed Musk’s original contributions.”

The lawsuit estimates that OpenAI earned between $65.5 billion and $109.43 billion in alleged wrongful gains, while Microsoft profited between $13.3 billion and $25.06 billion from Musk’s funding, technical insight, and strategic guidance. Both companies have denied the allegations.

Musk resigned from OpenAI’s board in 2018 and later founded xAI in 2023. He filed suit against OpenAI in 2024, directly challenging co-founder Sam Altman’s decision to shift the organization to a for-profit model, which Musk says violates its founding ideals.

OpenAI dismissed the lawsuit as meritless. “Musk’s claims are baseless and part of an ongoing pattern of harassment,” the company said in a statement. It described the latest damages demand as “unserious” and said it looks forward to rebutting the allegations at trial.

Musk’s legal campaign extends beyond OpenAI and Microsoft. xAI is also pursuing a separate lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI over ChatGPT’s integration into Siri and Apple Intelligence. Musk alleges that Apple’s App Store practices unfairly disadvantage rival AI products, including xAI’s Grok, and that case has survived an initial dismissal attempt.

As the trials approach, Musk’s courtroom actions have become emblematic of a broader struggle over control, profit, and principle in the rapidly evolving AI sector, where fortunes are immense, ideals are debated, and the outcome could shape the industry’s future.