Musk-Altman Feud Latest: xAI Appeals to Ninth Circuit as Public Insults Escalate After Trial Loss

The long-running legal and public feud between Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman continues to escalate this summer, with Musk's company xAI now pursuing an appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals even as the two billionaires trade increasingly personal insults online.

The latest developments follow a jury's May decision to reject Musk's core lawsuit against OpenAI, a case that had sought to unwind the company's shift away from its original nonprofit structure.

A Jury Rejects Musk's Central Claims

A federal jury in Oakland, California, delivered its verdict on May 18, 2026, finding that Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, Altman, co-founder Greg Brockman and Microsoft had been filed too late under the statute of limitations. Musk accused Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, OpenAI, and Microsoft of "stealing a charity" by creating a for-profit affiliate of the frontier AI lab, but jurors found that any harms Musk may have suffered came before the deadline for filing his claims under the law.

District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers adopted the jury's advisory verdict after deliberations that took less than two hours. The specific statute-of-limitations dates varied by claim, with deadlines set at August 2021 for the first count, August 2022 for the second, and November 2021 for the third.

Musk Reacts and Vows an Appeal

Musk did not accept the outcome quietly, framing the dismissal as a procedural technicality rather than a verdict on the underlying merits of his claims. "There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity," Musk wrote following the ruling. "The only question is WHEN they did it! I will be filing an appeal with the Ninth Circuit, because creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America."

OpenAI's legal team welcomed the verdict and pushed back forcefully on Musk's characterization of the case. OpenAI's lead attorney, Bill Savitt, said after the verdict that it did not take jurors long to conclude Musk's lawsuit amounted to little more than an after-the-fact contrivance disconnected from reality, adding that the case represented an attempt to sabotage a competitor.

A Second Legal Front: The Data Center Trade Secrets Case

Beyond the main nonprofit-mission lawsuit, Musk's xAI has pursued a separate legal track that has now also reached the appeals stage. xAI, also known as SpaceXAI, has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit over a case against OpenAI that has now been dismissed twice at the lower court level. That lawsuit, filed last year, accused OpenAI of stealing data center trade secrets through targeted hiring of xAI personnel. OpenAI has countersued in that matter, alleging "unlawful harassment" on Musk's part.

Musk's Earlier History With OpenAI

The current legal battles trace back to Musk's role as one of OpenAI's original co-founders. Musk helped launch OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit research organization, contributing $38 million in seed funding through an intermediary before leaving the company's board in 2018. In early 2018, Musk had proposed taking direct control of OpenAI, either through a majority stake in a for-profit subsidiary or by folding the organization into Tesla, a proposal that Altman, Brockman and fellow co-founder Ilya Sutskever rejected. Musk went on to found rival AI company xAI in 2023.

A Public Feud That Extends Well Beyond the Courtroom

Even as the legal proceedings have played out, the rivalry between Musk and Altman has continued to spill into public view through increasingly pointed exchanges on social media. Musk revived a nickname he has used before, writing "Scam Altman strikes again" in one post, before doubling down with further insults including "He takes scamming to a whole new level" and "He might literally love scamming more than any human alive!"

Altman has not stayed silent in the face of those attacks, firing back with his own accusations aimed at Musk's business ventures. Altman shot back that Musk is pitching public investors on short-term space datacenters, according to reporting on the exchange, continuing a pattern in which both men have accused the other of misleading investors about their respective AI and space ventures.

Apple Lawsuit Adds Another Layer

The feud has also intersected with a separate legal dispute involving Apple, which has sued OpenAI over trade secret allegations tied to consumer AI hardware. Musk amplified Apple's trade-secret suit on social media, accusing Altman of stealing Apple phone technology developed after OpenAI's nonprofit era. Notably, Altman has taken a markedly different tone in responding to Apple compared with his approach toward Musk, telling Apple he holds tremendous respect for the company even while continuing to trade barbs with Musk directly.

What the Appeal Could Mean Going Forward

With Musk's legal team now pursuing an appeal of the main verdict alongside the separate trade-secrets appeal, the Ninth Circuit is expected to take up aspects of the dispute sometime in late 2026 or into 2027. Legal analysts have generally cautioned that overturning a jury's statute-of-limitations finding on appeal tends to be difficult, meaning Musk's path to reviving his core claims against OpenAI faces a steep climb even as the broader public rivalry between the two men shows no signs of cooling.

With both the main lawsuit and the separate trade-secrets case now working their way through the appellate process, and with Musk and Altman continuing to trade public accusations even after the courtroom defeat, the dispute between the two AI industry leaders appears likely to remain a fixture of the sector's news cycle well into 2027. Investors and industry watchers will be paying close attention to how the pending appeals unfold, particularly given the stakes involved for OpenAI's ongoing fundraising efforts and its potential path toward a future public listing.