A federal judge in Oakland, California, on Thursday ordered that Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI Inc. and Microsoft proceed to a jury trial scheduled for late April, Bloomberg reports. The judge rejected motions from both companies seeking to dismiss Musk’s claims.

The case centres on Musk’s allegation that OpenAI betrayed its founding mission as a public charity when it accepted billions in funding from Microsoft and developed plans to operate as a for-profit business. Musk helped Sam Altman launch OpenAI in 2015 and later founded his own AI company in 2023.

OpenAI responded to the ruling with a statement to Bloomberg, saying the lawsuit “continues to be baseless and a part of [Musk’s] ongoing pattern of harassment, and we look forward to demonstrating this at trial. We remain focused on empowering the OpenAI Foundation, which is already one of the best resourced nonprofits ever.”

Bloomberg reports that Musk’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, and representatives of Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment.