Musk Demands $134B from OpenAI; WLD Dips as Legal War Escalates

Elon Musk has formally escalated his legal crusade against OpenAI and Microsoft, demanding between $79 billion and $134 billion in damages in a new federal court filing. The Tesla CEO alleges the tech giants generated “wrongful gains” by abandoning the non-profit mission he funded, effectively treating his early charitable contributions as seed capital for a $500 billion empire.

The market reaction was muted but visible: Worldcoin (WLD), the iris-scanning project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, slipped 1.7% to trade at $0.55, struggling to reclaim the $0.60 support level.

The $134 Billion Breakdown

In documents filed Friday in Oakland, California, Musk’s legal team presented a damages model constructed by financial economist C. Paul Wazzan. The filing argues that Musk’s $38 million in early funding, roughly 60% of OpenAI’s initial seed capital, along with his recruitment of key talent like Ilya Sutskever, entitles him to a massive slice of the company’s current valuation.

The breakdown of the demand is specific:

• From OpenAI: $65.5 billion to $109.4 billion.
• From Microsoft: $13.3 billion to $25.1 billion.

“Just as an early investor in a startup company may realize gains many orders of magnitude greater than the investor’s initial investment, the wrongful gains that OpenAI and Microsoft have earned… are much larger than Mr. Musk’s initial contributions.”, Steven Molo, Attorney for Elon Musk

The Institutional Context

This filing marks a pivot from ideological grievance to financial restitution. By framing his donation as an investment defrauded by a “bait-and-switch” to for-profit status, Musk is testing whether charitable intent can be retroactively converted into equity rights under California law.

OpenAI dismissed the claim as “baseless” and part of an “ongoing pattern of harassment” designed to hinder a competitor to Musk’s own xAI. A jury trial is currently scheduled for April 27, 2026.