March 4 (Reuters) - A U.S. court on Tuesday denied

billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk a preliminary injunction he

was seeking against ChatGPT-maker OpenAI's efforts to convert

into a for-profit firm.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland,

California said Musk has not met "the high burden required for a

preliminary injunction" to block the conversion of OpenAI to a

for-profit status.

However, Rogers said that she is prepared to expedite a

trial on the issue to later this year.

OpenAI, Musk and Microsoft ( MSFT ), which backs OpenAI, did

not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

OpenAI has been trying to transition from a nonprofit into a

for-profit entity, which it says it needs to do to secure the

capital required to develop the best artificial intelligence

models.

Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman

last year, saying OpenAI's founders originally approached him to

fund a nonprofit focused on developing AI to benefit humanity,

but that it is now focused on making money.

He later expanded the lawsuit to add federal antitrust and

other claims, and in December asked the judge presiding over the

case to stop OpenAI's transition into a for-profit.

Musk cofounded OpenAI with Altman in 2015, but left before

the company took off and subsequently founded competing AI

startup xAI in 2023.

(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H

K)