A judge blocked Musk's bid to stop OpenAI's for-profit conversion — but he'll still get his day in court

• Elon Musk failed to secure an injunction to halt OpenAI's for-profit shift.
• In a Tuesday court filing, the judge called Musk's request "extraordinary and rarely granted."
• However, the court said it could fast-track a trial for other parts of the suit to fall 2025.

A judge has denied Elon Musk's bid to stop Sam Altman from converting OpenAI into a for-profit entity but said other areas of the lawsuit could be expedited to trial.

In a Tuesday filing, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers called Musk's request for an injunction on OpenAI's restructuring "extraordinary and rarely granted."

However, the court is prepared to expedite a trial over "interrelated contract-based claims" to fall 2025 given the "public interest at stake."

It means Musk and his co-plaintiffs, his startup xAI and former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis, are set to have their day in court — but Gonzalez Rogers said it's unlikely the case will be ready for trial until 2027 or 2028.

In November, lawyers for Musk filed a revised lawsuit against OpenAI for a preliminary injunction against OpenAI following reports that the ChatGPT maker was moving to adopt a more traditional corporate structure.

Altman wants to extricate OpenAI's revenue-generating business from its nonprofit parent, a tricky maneuver even without Musk's involvement.

The November lawsuit expanded on Musk's previous legal moves against OpenAI to include allegations of antitrust violations, adding Microsoft as a defendant.

Lawyers for Musk argued that that OpenAI's close ties with Microsoft give the company an unfair advantage and stifles competition in the AI space.

The ruling is the latest development in the ongoing tensions between Musk and Altman, who cofounded OpenAI in 2015. Musk left the company in 2018 after disagreements over its direction, later accusing OpenAI of abandoning its nonprofit mission.

Last month, Musk led a $97.4 billion bid to take control of OpenAI, which the company's board swiftly rejected.

"It's time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was," Musk's attorney, Marc Toberoff, said in a statement following the bid.

Altman later said in an interview that he believed Musk's legal action was an attempt to slow OpenAI down.

Representatives for Musk and OpenAI did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.