Elon Musk returns to Texas after losing the OpenAI trial in Oakland

Elon Musk flew from Washington Dulles International Airport to Draughon Miller Central Texas Regional Airport on Tuesday afternoon, a 2-hour-39-minute trip in his Gulfstream G650ER, N628TS. The flight landed at 11:12 a.m. local time, just over 24 hours after a federal jury in Oakland, California, rejected his lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman.

A jury in Oakland ruled Monday that Musk waited too long to sue, finding his claims fell outside the three-year statute of limitations — a verdict Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers immediately adopted. Musk called the decision a “calendar technicality” on X and vowed to appeal to the 9th Circuit, per CNBC and The Washington Post. The trial, which opened in late April, centered on Musk’s allegation that Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman “stole a charity” by abandoning the company’s nonprofit mission. The court did not rule on the merits of that claim.

The Tuesday trip from Washington — where Musk had been part of President Trump’s state-visit delegation to Beijing last week — returns him to his home base near Starbase, Texas. The flight follows a pattern of heavy cross-country movement during the trial: Musk’s fleet logged trips between Oakland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Washington in the days before closing arguments. His legal team acknowledged he missed the trial’s closing to join the Beijing delegation, as covered by The Next Web.