Musk deletes rant about ‘activist Oakland judge’ after OpenAI ruling

After a resounding loss Monday in his $150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, Elon Musk took to his own social media network, X, to air out his grievances with the judge presiding over the case.

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On Monday, a jury unanimously ruled that Musk had missed his chance to sue, deciding that the statute of limitations had passed by the time the world’s richest man accused OpenAI executives of illegally turning the nonprofit into a for-profit company. In a since-deleted X post, Musk blasted Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers, calling her an “activist” judge.

“This illustrates why the ruling by the terrible activist Oakland judge, who simply used the jury as a fig leaf, creates such a terrible precedent,” Musk wrote. “She just handed out a free license to loot charities if you can keep the looting quiet for a few years!”

Musk vowed to appeal the ruling in a separate post that remains on the social media network.

Gonzalez Rogers is a veteran federal judge in the Northern District of California who has presided over major tech industry trials, including the major 2020 antitrust case between Epic Games and Apple. She was appointed by President Barack Obama.

Musk’s ire for the judge is no secret. Throughout the trial, Gonzales Rogers frequently had to scold Musk for his behavior in and out of the courtroom. During his testimony, Gonzales Rogers instructed Musk to stop talking about artificial intelligence leading to human extinction, a rule she had made prior to the start of the trial. She also ordered him to stop talking about the case on X, which he continued to do anyway.

In a testy exchange with OpenAI’s lawyer, Musk attempted to propose a metaphor to dissect the team’s yes-or-no questions, but Gonzalez Rogers quickly cut him off.

“The classic answer to a yes-or-no question is not so simple. For example, if you ask the question, ‘Will you stop beating your wife?’” Musk asked.

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“We’re not going there,” Gonzales Rogers said.

At one point, Rogers even reminded Musk that he was not a lawyer, getting laughs from the courthouse audience. Musk claimed that OpenAI’s lawyers were asking leading questions and “conflating timelines,” prompting Gonzales Rogers to again step in.

“That’s not how it works, Mr. Musk. Let’s remind everyone in the courtroom that you’re not a lawyer,” Gonzalez Rogers said.

“Well, technically, I did take Law 101,” Musk said.

“You’re not a lawyer,” Gonzalez Rogers retorted.

Musk co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman and AI researchers in 2015 as a nonprofit but left the organization just a few years later. Since then, OpenAI has shifted to a for-profit model and is expected to go public later this year in a highly anticipated initial public offering. Musk sued Altman and OpenAI in 2024, alleging the company abandoned its initial mission of developing AI for the benefit of humanity.

Altman and OpenAI have maintained that Musk was aware of plans to shift to a for-profit model early on and that he sued only after he launched his own AI company as a competitor. A federal jury deliberated for only two hours before handing down a big legal win for OpenAI, deciding that Musk filed suit too late. The jury did not evaluate Musk’s claims.

Though he has since deleted his post criticizing Rogers, Musk reposted a note from “Tesla Owners Silicon Valley” that also called her an “activist judge.” Marc Toberoff, an attorney for Musk, doubled down on the plans to appeal, likening the Monday verdict to historical events in the American Revolution such as the Siege of Charleston and the Battle of Bunker Hill. He told a reporter that each was a “terrible loss for Americans, but who won the war?”

“This war is not over. I would say this is just the first step,” Toberoff said.