Elon Musk’s 2024 lawsuit against OpenAI has escalated into a public airing of the power struggles, governance disputes and personal tensions between an eccentric billionaire and one of the world’s most influential AI companies.
The federal trial in Oakland, Calif., which began on April 28, centers on Musk’s claim that OpenAI and its leaders, including CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman, abandoned the organization’s original nonprofit mission in pursuit of profit and power.
Musk is seeking damages of $150 billion – to be given to OpenAI’s nonprofit arm – and wants OpenAI returned to nonprofit control, according to The Wall Street Journal. OpenAI said Musk gave the startup $38 million when it was still a nonprofit.
Musk helped to found OpenAI before a dispute over leadership made him exit the startup in 2018. The billionaire backed OpenAI to counter what he believed was Google’s dominance in AI, which he saw as dangerous because a for-profit company would control a powerful technology.
In his testimony, Musk portrayed OpenAI as a “charity” founded to develop artificial intelligence safely for humanity rather than enrich executives or investors. Musk testified that Altman and Brockman later reversed those commitments through OpenAI’s restructuring and close partnership with Microsoft, according to Reuters. (Brockman has said that they couldn’t raise the billions needed to develop AI as a nonprofit and had to pivot to a capped-profit startup.)
OpenAI’s lawyers argued that Musk was motivated less by AI safety than by frustration over losing influence at the startup he helped launch. Musk sparred repeatedly with attorneys in court, at one point accusing them of trying to “trick” him during questioning, Reuters reported. (Musk would later start his own for-profit AI startup, xAI, which has now merged with SpaceX.)
Brockman’s testimony added new details about OpenAI’s early years and internal disagreements. He described Musk as unpredictable and often lacked patience for the technical realities of AI development. Brockman also testified that Musk once pushed for OpenAI to raise as much as $80 billion partly to support ambitions tied to Mars colonization, according to Reuters.
The trial has drawn in major tech figures, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who testified today that Microsoft never controlled OpenAI despite committing roughly $13 billion to the startup, the Journal reported.
Altman is expected to take the stand in the coming days. Former CTO Mira Murati testified that Altman fostered “chaos” and distrust among senior leaders by telling different people conflicting information. Altman was briefly fired and rehired in November 2023.