Reporter, MoneyWatch Mary Cunningham is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. She previously worked at "60 Minutes," CBSNews.com and CBS News 24/7 as part of the CBS News Associate Program. A California jury on Monday unanimously dismissed Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman on the grounds that Musk had failed to file a claim within the statute of limitations, delivering a major legal victory for the AI company. The nine-person jury, which was serving in an advisory role, found that Musk missed the three-year window to file a claim. OpenAI had argued that Musk waited too long and could not claim any harm that occurred before August 2021. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez, who presided over the case, accepted the jury's verdict and dismissed Musk's claims. "The finding of the jury confirms that what this lawsuit was was a hypocritical attempt to sabotage a competitor and to overcome a long history of very bad predictions about what OpenAI has been and will become," OpenAI attorney William Savitt said outside the courtroom after the decision, noting that it took the jury less than two hours of deliberation to reach a decision. Musk said on social media that he plans to appeal the ruling. "Regarding the OpenAI case, the judge & jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality," he wrote on his platform, X. "There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity." Spotlight on Altman and Musk The decision caps a three-week trial in an Oakland courtroom that pitted Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, against Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. Both entrepreneurs testified during the trial, along with OpenAI and Microsoft executives and legal experts. Musk was seeking $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Altman's removal from company leadership. A decision in Musk's favor could also have forced changes to OpenAI's business structure and thrown a wrench into the company's plan to go public, expected later this year. "Stealing a charity"? The case stemmed from a lawsuit Musk, the world's richest man, brought in 2024, alleging that OpenAI, Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman broke their promise to keep the company a nonprofit, instead turning it into a money-making venture that is now valued at $852 billion. The case was a "textbook tale of altruism versus greed," Musk said in his suit. Microsoft, which formed a partnership with OpenAI in 2019, was also named as a defendant. On Monday, a Microsoft spokesperson said the company welcomes "the jury's decision to dismiss these claims as untimely." "The biggest focus of the trial around if OpenAI broke its charitable mission when they spun off its for-profit arm and accepted an investment from Microsoft for its AI technology is now mostly alleviated as it takes a worst-case scenario off the table," WedBush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a report. Musk, who helped co-found OpenAI, invested $38 million in the company during its early years, which he argued was intended for charitable purposes. In his suit, the billionaire claimed OpenAI breached its charitable trust and that Altman and Brockman enriched themselves at his expense. Musk also accused Microsoft of aiding and abetting the trust breach. "It's not OK to steal a charity," Musk said during his testimony . The head of SpaceX and Tesla missed the tail end of the trial to join President Trump