In a rare and direct letter to investors and banking partners, OpenAI announced that it expects Elon Musk to make “deliberately unbelievable” claims regarding his lawsuit against the company, which is due to go before a jury in April 2026, in order to divert attention.
The warning comes amid an increasingly bitter legal battle between the tech billionaire and the company he founded Musk helped. Musk has filed a lawsuit alleging that OpenAI and Microsoft, which owns a large stake in the firm, made “illegal gains” worth tens of billions of dollars thanks to his early financial and strategic support of OpenAI, including claims of the artificial intelligence lab’s large market value.
According to documents in an investor letter seen by CNBC, OpenAI expressed its belief that the value of the case practically does not exceed Musk’s original donation of about $38 million, despite requests for enormous sums. The company expects Musk to respond in the public arena with claims that, according to OpenAI, are not “rooted in reality.”
The dispute itself is the result of long-standing disagreements between Musk and the management of OpenAI over the transformation of the organization from a non-profit model to a for-profit structure with a strategic partnership with Microsoft, a change that enabled large investments and a company value of about 500 billion dollars.
For investors and partners, this kind of warning has a practical purpose: to reduce potential market reaction to sensationalist media headlines and statements that Musk might make at trial. Market and financial analysts often believe that very high compensation claims and dramatic claims can affect sentiment in the technology sector, including stock prices and risk perceptions.
The trial is scheduled for April 27, 2026 before a jury in Oakland, California, and is expected to cover a wide range of issues, from Musk’s original role in founding OpenAI to valuing the contributions he and other key players made in establishing the company that today leads the global AI industry.
In the background of this legal dispute is the larger picture of rivalry in the AI industry, including Musk’s new AI project xAI and the demand for global investment in artificial intelligence. OpenAI’s decision to prepare investors in advance shows how careful perception management has become an important part of tech companies’ strategy when legal risks and publicity go hand in hand.
In conclusion, as the process approaches, OpenAI’s warning to investors to expect “deliberately incredible claims” from Musk serves both as a strategy to preserve the stability of trust and financial security, but also as an indicator of how intense and polarizing this legal showdown at the heart of the AI industry could be in 2026, reports CNBC.