Elon Musk faces accusations from major tech rival | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

Things haven’t been going well for Elon Musk lately, and this week hasn’t been an exception.

After a highly volatile trading week, Tesla stock is still struggling against difficult market conditions. Even its lack of direct exposure to the recently imposed auto industry tariffs hasn’t been enough to shield it from the forces pushing down most tech leaders.

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However, things look particularly grim for Tesla following the company’s recent deliveries miss. It came in below Wall Street estimates, even after analysts scaled back their forecasts. Meanwhile, Tesla owners have been rushing to sell their cars to protest Musk’s political stances.

Tesla isn’t the only Musk-owned company that is facing considerable challenges, though. His quest to conquer another industry recently took a disappointing turn, resulting in legal action from one of his biggest rivals.

Elon Musk is facing a lawsuit that could have significant repercussions.

Musk is being sued by a company he wants to own

The personal computing boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s is often defined by a rivalry between two industry titans: Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Apple founder Steve Jobs. Decades later, a new rivalry has come to define Silicon Valley, one between Musk and OpenAI founder Sam Altman.

Musk originally backed OpenAI when the nonprofit artificial intelligence (AI) research organization launched in 2015. A few years later, he attempted to take control of it, claiming it had fallen behind Google and required strong, corrective action, a proposal Altman and the rest of OpenAI’s leaders quickly rejected.

Although Musk would walk away from OpenAI following this defeat, he never quite abandoned his quest to take it over.

In February 2025, he submitted a bid to acquire its for-profit assets for $97.4 billion. Now, OpenAI has announced that it is countersuing him for harassment and other bad-faith actions.

“Through press attacks, malicious campaigns broadcast to Musk’s more than 200 million followers on the social media platform he controls, a pretextual demand for corporate records, harassing legal claims and a sham bid for OpenAI’s assets, Musk has tried every tool available to harm OpenAI,” the company stated in a lawsuit.

Elon’s nonstop actions against us are just bad-faith tactics to slow down OpenAI and seize control of the leading AI innovations for his personal benefit. Today, we counter-sued to stop him.

— OpenAI Newsroom (@OpenAINewsroom) April 9, 2025

Musk responded to the announcement by commenting on an X post with the words “Scam Altman is at it again,” lending support to OpenAI’s claims that he has been harassing it.

In the recent court filing, the company stated, “Musk could not tolerate seeing such success for an enterprise he had abandoned and declared doomed.”

Following his $97 billion offer, though, OpenAI reportedly considered granting its board members special voting rights to ensure that Musk would not be able to buy it by granting them “outsized voting power.”

While it is unclear if Altman’s team ever opted for such action, they have clearly decided that Musk’s unwanted attempts to acquire the company require a legal response, as their case asks that he be blocked from any further attacks and “held responsible for the damage he has already caused.”

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A jury trial to settle the matter is scheduled to begin in 2026, though few details regarding this key event have been provided at this time.

Will Musk finally back down or keep fighting to get what he wants?

Anyone who follows Musk knows that he is often willing to go to extremes to get what he wants, especially if it is a company. In 2022, he procured $47 billion to purchase Twitter (now X), a move many economic experts considered ill-advised.

However, it has become increasingly clear that purchasing OpenAI will not be so easy for him. In March 2025, a California judge denied his bid to pause the company’s transition to a for-profit structure, even after he attempted to frame it as being in the general public’s best interest.

“Musk’s attorney previously amplified Musk’s arguments, claiming that if OpenAI is allowed to continue its for-profit conversion, it will mean “irreparable harm” for Musk, xAI, and its investors, as well as the general public,” reported TheStreet. “That said, it is not clear how the general public would be impacted by OpenAI switching from its non-profit model.”

While that remains unclear, OpenAI is sending a clear message to Musk that it is not for sale and cannot be bullied. The trial is still fairly far away, and much could happen between now and then.

Given the devastating legal blow that the California court system has already dealt Musk, it seems likely that he will face an uphill battle as the proceedings continue.