Jury deliberates Elon Musk vs Sam Altman case as OpenAI's future hangs in the balance

What the jury will actually decide in the case of Elon Musk vs. Sam Altman | TechCrunch

Nine California jurors are now deliberating over the future of OpenAI, the world-leading artificial intelligence lab. While the trial exploring Elon Musk's case against OpenAI's other cofounders and Microsoft has covered territory ranging from the breakup of the founders in 2018 to Altman's firing and rehiring in 2023, the jurors will be considering a set of fairly narrow questions. OpenAI has also made three arguments in its defense that the jury will weigh: If Musk wins out, it could mean the end of OpenAI as a for-profit company, but it's not entirely clear what will result. Next week, the judge will begin a set of new hearings where lawyers from both sides will debate what the consequences of a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs might be. That process could be rendered moot by a negative verdict, however. Musk's attorneys say the defendants clearly understood that Musk wanted to support a non-profit that would ensure the benefits of AI to the world, and prevent it from being controlled by any one organization. In particular, they say a $10 billion investment from Microsoft in 2023 into OpenAI's for-profit affiliate -- the first to happen after the statute of limitations -- was the event that turned Musk's concern into conviction. That deal, Musk's lawyers say, was different from previous investments and led to OpenAI's investors being enriched by the company's commercial products, at the expense of the charitable mission of AI safety that Musk promoted. OpenAI's attorneys have asked every witness to describe specific restrictions put on Musk's donations, and none have, including his financial adviser Jared Birchall, his chief of staff Sam Teller, or his special adviser Shivon Zilis. They say everyone involved agreed that private fundraising would be required to achieve its goals, and note that Musk himself attempted to launch an OpenAI-affiliated for-profit he would personally control, and later to merge OpenAI into his company Tesla. They also note the organization's other donors haven't said their charitable trust was violated. Importantly, a forensic accountant hired by OpenAI testified that all of Musk's donations had been used by OpenAI well before the key date of August 5, 2021. That is evidence that Musk's donations were already used for their purpose well before he brought his lawsuit, invalidating any charitable trust that may have existed. Mainly, they insist that the for-profit affiliate that conducts most of OpenAI's actual activity continues to fulfill the organization's mission, and has generated nearly $200 billion in equity value to support the non-profit foundation. Notably, Sam Altman argued that providing ChatGPT for free helps fulfill the mission of sharing the benefits of AI with the world. The plaintiffs point to the multibillion-dollar valuations of stakes held by OpenAI founders like Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, as well as Microsoft itself, as a sign that Musk's donations were ultimately used for personal benefit, as opposed to supporting the mission of the charity. They argue that the work at OpenAI's for-profit was commercially focused, while the foundation itself was left essentially dormant, without full-time employees, and, ultimately, not even in control of the for-profit. OpenAI says all of Musk's contributions were used by the foundation by 2020, and that equity distributions came well after he left the organization in 2018. Even beforehand, evidence shows the key players agreed that being able to compensate researchers with stock was key to developing AGI, the hypothetical form of AI capable of performing any intellectual task a human can. OpenAI executives maintain that the for-profit's work meaningfully advanced the foundation's mission, including safety activities. They say the non-profit board continues to control the for-profit, and instituted new governance controls following "the blip," when Altman was fired by OpenAI's non-profit board in 2023 for lack of candor and then rehired just days later. Musk's case focused on the events of the blip, when Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, whose company depended on OpenAI's tech, was personally involved with helping to bring Altman back and creating a new board to govern OpenAI. They note that Microsoft executives wondered if their commercial agreement might conflict with the non-profit's goals, and suggest that Microsoft's commercial priorities led OpenAI away from its mission. They've focused attention on a clause in Microsoft's agreement with OpenAI that gave Microsoft veto rights over major corporate decisions at OpenAI. Microsoft's witnesses have insisted that the company's executives didn't know of any specific conditions on Musk's donations despite extensive due diligence, and never vetoed any decision by OpenAI. They note that the company's investments and compute power allowed OpenAI to achieve its biggest triumphs. Musk has suggested that his skepticism of his cofounders grew over time, until in the fall of 2022 he finally decided they had betrayed him when he found out about Microsoft's plans for a new $10 billion investment that took place in 2023. He wouldn't file his lawsuit until mid-2024. OpenAI's attorneys argue that the terms of that deal were spelled out in a term sheet for a previous fundraising round in 2018, which Musk received and his advisers reviewed, but Musk said he didn't read in detail. They also note numerous blog posts and other communications from over the years that show Musk could have known what OpenAI was doing well before he brought them to court, including tweets where Musk criticized the company years before the suit. Zilis, Musk's adviser, even voted to approve these transactions as a member of the OpenAI board. Ultimately, the OpenAI attorneys emphasize that Musk's formal role in the organization ended in 2018 and his last donations took place in 2020. OpenAI's attorneys say the real reason that Musk filed his suit was he realized that he was wrong about OpenAI, after its launch of ChatGPT revolutionized the business of artificial intelligence. They argue that OpenAI has operated under its current structure since its first Microsoft investment in 2018, and that forcing the organization to restructure eight years later is unreasonable. There is evidence that Musk was planning his own competing AI efforts while he was still the chair of OpenAI, and hired OpenAI employees to work on AI at Tesla. OpenAI's attorneys argue that these efforts undermined OpenAI at a time when it was using Musk's donations to pursue its mission. They noted that Zilis, the mother of three of Musk's children, didn't disclose her personal relationship to other OpenAI board members for years. And they argue that Musk withheld his donations in 2017 in an effort to win control of a planned for-profit affiliate of OpenAI. Finally, "Mr. Musk abandoned OpenAI for dead in 2018," Bill Savitt, OpenAI's lead attorney, told the jury.

Musk v. Altman week 2: OpenAI fires back, and Shivon Zilis reveals that Musk tried to poach Sam Altman

Last week, Musk took the stand, alleging that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman had deceived him into donating $38 million to the company. He claimed that they'd promised to maintain it as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the benefit of humanity, only to later accept billions of dollars of investment from Microsoft and restructure the company to operate a for-profit subsidiary. This week, Brockman fired back with his side of the story, arguing that Musk had actually pushed for OpenAI to create a for-profit arm and fought a bitter battle to have "absolute control" over it. OpenAI has argued that Musk is suing because he didn't get his way and is now trying to undermine a competitor to his own AI company, xAI. Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member and the mother of four of Musk's children, also testified, revealing that Musk tried to recruit OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to lead a new AI lab at his electric-car company, Tesla. Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015 with Altman, Brockman, and others but left in 2018. Now, he's asking the court to remove Altman and Brockman from their roles and to unwind the restructuring OpenAI undertook last year, which converted its for-profit subsidiary into a public benefit corporation. He is also seeking as much as $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, OpenAI's investor. The outcome of the trial could upend OpenAI's race toward an IPO at a valuation approaching $1 trillion. Meanwhile, xAI, which Musk founded in 2023, is now a division of his rocket company, SpaceX; the combined companies are also expected to go public as early as June, at a target valuation of $1.75 trillion. On Monday, Brockman walked into the courtroom in a blue suit and tie, holding hands with his wife, Anna Brockman. On the stand, he was serene, even chipper, as he recalled OpenAI's early days. But he grew agitated under impassioned questioning from Elon Musk's lawyer, Steven Molo. Altman listened in silence, while Anna Brockman sat behind him, fidgeting. Outside the courthouse, protesters rallying against the AI race sang hymns over the voices of lawyers giving press conferences. Two days before trial began, according to Brockman, Musk messaged him to ask if he would be interested in settling. When Brockman suggested that both sides drop their claims, Musk texted back: "By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be." Last week, Musk testified that he's suing to save OpenAI's nonprofit mission to develop AI safely, but he said he was open to seeing OpenAI become a capped-profit company with moderate investments from Microsoft. This week, Brockman told the jury that Musk was never truly committed to keeping OpenAI a nonprofit. In the summer of 2017, when an AI model that OpenAI built beat the world's best players in a video game called Dota 2, Musk hosted a gathering at his "Haunted Mansion" near San Francisco. The house was splattered with confetti and cups, Brockman recalled, and the actress Amber Heard, who was Musk's girlfriend at the time, served whiskey.

The Real Losers of the Musk v. Altman Trial

Attorneys delivered closing arguments in the Musk v. Altman trial on Thursday in a final attempt to convince a judge and jury that their respective clients, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, are the most well-intentioned, truth-telling stewards of OpenAI's founding nonprofit mission. A judgement could be delivered as soon as next week, ending a decade-long battle between two of the technology industry's most influential entrepreneurs. But regardless of the outcome, there is a wide set of losers in this case. Based on ample amounts of evidence, it appears that the people worst off are the employees, policy makers, and members of the public who believed in the mission of a nonprofit research lab -- and supported OpenAI because of it. What seemed to take precedent for Musk and OpenAI's other cofounders at almost every turn was building the world's leading AI lab -- even if that meant creating a multibillion dollar for-profit company in the process. "It's hard to see how the public interest is being protected by either of these parties, and that is really what is ultimately at stake in a case about a nonprofit," says Jill Horwitz, a Northwestern University law professor with expertise in nonprofits and innovation, who listened to the closing arguments. "The public interest in the nonprofit is at risk no matter who wins." OpenAI's stated mission is to ensure artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits humanity, but humanity is not a party in this case. In practice, OpenAI has spent the last decade attempting to rival multitrillion dollar companies like Google, and build AGI first. Additionally, Musk and Altman have fought tooth and nail to be the ones who control OpenAI. "Musk and Altman are basically locked in a race to be the first to build superintelligence, and they both rightly fear what the other will do if they win. The rest of us should fear them both," says Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher who joined in 2022 and has raised concerns over the company's safety culture. He was part of a group of former OpenAI researchers that filed an amicus brief in this case against OpenAI's for-profit conversion, arguing that the nonprofit structure was critical in their decision to join the company. At trial, OpenAI's nonprofit was discussed as if it were yet another corporate investor. OpenAI's lawyers argued that giving the nonprofit a $200 billion stake in the for-profit company is proof that OpenAI is fulfilling its mission. Public advocacy groups disagree that funding alone is sufficient. "I am among the many people who are glad to see how many philanthropic resources the OpenAI foundation has at its disposal to do good work," says Nathan Calvin, VP of state affairs for the AI safety nonprofit Encode, which filed an amicus brief opposing OpenAI's restructuring earlier in this case. "But it's worth remembering that the nonprofit also has a governance role, and that the mission of the nonprofit is not that of a typical foundation, it is specifically to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity. Money is important for that goal and is useful all else equal, but it is not the goal in and of itself." Evidence revealed in this case suggests Altman and Musk were in agreement about OpenAI launching as a nonprofit and operating much like a typical startup. They shared the goal of beating Google DeepMind in the race to AGI. But creating OpenAI as a nonprofit turned out to be a horribly inconvenient means to winning that race. Musk has accused Altman, OpenAI's CEO, and Greg Brockman, its cofounder and president, of straying from the nonprofit's founding mission. He claims the founders used his $38 million investment to turn OpenAI into an $850 billion company and make several of its cofounders billionaires.

Musk mulled handing OpenAI to his children, Altman testifies | TechCrunch

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman finally took the stand this morning to defend himself against his former cofounder Elon Musk's lawsuit challenging OpenAI's corporate structure. Altman was asked out of the gate what he thought of Musk's allegation that OpenAI's other founders "stole a charity" when they launched a for-profit subsidiary to market products based on the company's AI models. "It feels difficult to even wrap my head around that framing," Altman said after several seconds of silence. "We created one of the largest charities in the world. This foundation is doing incredible work and will do much more." Musk's attorneys have been at pains to point out that OpenAI's foundation, which now has assets on the order of $200 billion, didn't have full-time employees until earlier this year. OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor testified today that was simply because of the challenge of converting OpenAI equity to cash, which was accomplished with the organization's most recent restructuring in 2025. The central question posed by Musk's lawyers is whether the company's commitment to safety had been left behind as its commercial power grew. But Altman said that in 2017, during a pivotal period when the founders wrestled with how to obtain the funding to power their AI models, Musk's "specific plans on safety made me worry." He described a "particularly hair-raising moment" in the debate when Musk was asked what would happen if he died while controlling a hypothetical OpenAI for-profit. In Altman's telling, Musk said "maybe OpenAI should pass to my children." Altman said that Musk's focus on controlling the initial for-profit gave him pause because OpenAI was dedicated to keeping advanced AI out of the hands of a single person, and Altman, with his experience running the prominent startup accelerator Y Combinator, knew "founders who had control usually did not give it up." Altman also testified that Musk's management tactics, which might have worked for engineering and manufacturing, didn't work at OpenAI. "I don't think Mr. Musk understood how to run a good research lab," Altman said. "He had demotivated some of our most key researchers. He had at one point required Greg and Ilya to make a list of the researchers and list out their accomplishments and stack rank them and take a chainsaw through a bunch. That did huge damage for a long time to the culture of the organization." Indeed, Altman cast himself as defending the "sweat equity" of fellow cofounders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, the two people effectively running OpenAI at the time while Musk and Altman had other jobs. After that clash went unresolved, Musk ultimately left OpenAI's board and started competing AI initiatives at Tesla and his own AI startup, xAI. But Altman kept in touch with the mercurial businessman, updating him on OpenAI's work and seeking his funding and advice. OpenAI's lawyers noted that Musk had been kept up to date and asked to participate in the investments that his lawsuits now claim corrupted the non-profit. During one discussion of a Microsoft investment into OpenAI in 2018, Altman said that "unlike a lot of meetings with Mr. Musk, this was a good vibes meeting," where Musk spent a "long conversation showing us memes on his phone."

Sam Altman says Elon Musk's mind games were damaging OpenAI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says Elon Musk did "huge damage" to the culture of the AI startup. During testimony as part of Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, Altman said Musk required OpenAI president Greg Brockman and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever to rank researchers by their accomplishments and "take a chainsaw through a bunch." Altman conceded that this was the management style the Tesla CEO was known for, but that it was incompatible with his startup. "I don't think Mr. Musk understood how to run a good research lab," Altman testified when his lawyer, William Savitt, asked about the impact of Musk's departure from OpenAI on morale. "For a research lab where people need, sort of, psychological safety and long periods of time to pursue an idea, this idea that you constantly have to show your results, and if they're not good enough on a short period, you're going to get fired. That really didn't work for the kind of research we went on to successfully do." Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015 with Altman and Brockman, but the billionaire left the startup in 2018. At the time, OpenAI said Musk was leaving to avoid a conflict of interest with the machine learning work done by Tesla, though testimony is painting a different picture. Altman added that Musk's departure "was a morale boost in some ways," as staff members realized they didn't have to "work this way anymore." Musk's lawsuit claims OpenAI abandoned its original mission of benefitting humanity, and that Altman and Brockman tricked him into providing funding for the startup. The trial has entered its third week, and we've seen testimony from several key figures, including Brockman, former OpenAI board member Shivon Zillis, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati.

Elon Musk's court battle against OpenAI enters homestretch

OAKLAND, California, May 14 (Reuters) - A trial that may shape the future of OpenAI enters its final stages on Thursday, as lawyers for Elon Musk try to convince a jury to hold the ChatGPT maker's leaders responsible for transforming the nonprofit into a vehicle to enrich themselves. Closing arguments are scheduled in the Oakland, California, federal court in Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. Musk is suing OpenAI and Altman for breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment, accusing them of "stealing a charity" by straying from OpenAI's founding mission to build safe AI that would benefit humanity. The world's richest person said the OpenAI defendants manipulated him into giving $38 million, only to go behind his back by attaching a for-profit business to its original nonprofit, and accepting tens of billions of dollars from Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and other investors to grow. OpenAI has said the organization is stronger as a for-profit entity, including the nonprofit that is now a shareholder of the corporation, ⁠and that Musk simply wanted control. Musk is seeking about $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, which would be paid to OpenAI's nonprofit to further its altruistic goals. He also wants Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman removed from their roles. Microsoft has spent more than $100 billion on its partnership with OpenAI, a Microsoft executive testified. OpenAI competes with AI companies such as Anthropic and Musk's smaller xAI, and is preparing for a possible initial public offering that could value the business at $1 trillion. Musk's xAI is now part of his space and rocket company SpaceX, which is also preparing a potential blockbuster IPO. LAWYERS TO ARGUE REMEDIES WHILE JURORS DELIBERATE U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is overseeing the case. It is unclear when the nine-person jury will begin deliberations. If there is no verdict before Monday, the judge and lawyers will return to court that day to discuss how OpenAI should be restructured and what damages should be paid if Musk wins. Gonzalez Rogers will determine remedies and will award none if Musk loses. The trial comes amid significant public concerns over AI as ⁠it penetrates society. People use AI for myriad purposes such as facial recognition, financial advice, journalism, medical diagnoses, and harmful deep-fakes. Many people express distrust of the technology and worry it could displace people from their jobs. MUSK'S AND ALTMAN'S SINCERITY WAS CHALLENGED OpenAI was founded by Altman, Musk and several others in 2015, though Musk left its board in 2018. The sincerity of Altman and Musk about their attitudes toward OpenAI and goals for the AI business has been a central issue in the trial, and neither man has emerged unscathed. OpenAI has tried to show that even Musk supported its ⁠creation of a for-profit business to raise money for computing power and fend off rivals such as Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab. It has also said Musk demanded unilateral control to ensure his continued support. Musk's effort last year to buy OpenAI through an xAI-led consortium has also been a point of dispute, with OpenAI trying to show it was inconsistent with Musk's goals in his lawsuit. Musk's lawyers have tried ⁠to portray Altman and Brockman as interested in riches for themselves. They elicited testimony that Altman had a more than $2 billion stake in companies that did business with OpenAI, and Brockman's statement that his own OpenAI stake was worth nearly $30 billion. Musk's lawyers have also portrayed Altman as dishonest, including through testimony about his 2023 ouster by OpenAI's board, which challenged his ⁠candor. Altman was reinstated in less than one week. Former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever testified to having gathered evidence to show Altman's "consistent pattern of lying." Musk's lawyer also questioned whether Altman had conflicts of interest through his involvement in companies that worked with OpenAI. Altman said he has no direct equity stake in OpenAI, though he has a stake in a fund invested in the company. Reporting by Kenrick Cai and Deepa Seetharaman in Oakland, California, and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Rod Nickel Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Artificial Intelligence * Consumer Protection * Sustainable Markets * Social Impact * Corporate Structure Kenrick Cai Thomson Reuters Kenrick Cai is a correspondent for Reuters based in San Francisco. He covers Google, its parent company Alphabet and artificial intelligence. Cai joined Reuters in 2024. He previously worked at Forbes magazine, where he was a staff writer covering venture capital and startups. He received a Best in Business award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing in 2023. He is a graduate of Duke University. Reach him on Signal at @kenrick.01.

Elon Musk made 'hair-raising' demands for control of OpenAI, Sam Altman testifies

Sam Altman said Elon Musk repeatedly made "hair-raising" demands for control over OpenAI, including passing it on to his children, as the AI lab's chief executive took the stand in a legal battle with the world's richest man. Altman on Tuesday told a jury in Oakland, California, that he feared Musk would seek "vengeance" after they fell out over the direction of the AI lab they co-founded as a charity in 2015. OpenAI has argued that Musk had no objection to converting the start-up into a for-profit business as long as he had control, and his claims that Altman sold out its non-profit mission are part of a long-running campaign of retribution. Musk's lawsuit could decide the fate of the $852bn AI lab. The billionaire is seeking to reverse OpenAI's conversion into a for-profit entity as well as damages of more than $100bn. Altman testified Musk repeatedly pushed for control of the company from its inception in 2015 until he left the board in 2018. He said at one point Musk asked for 90 per cent of the equity in OpenAI, subsequently reducing his demand during negotiations, but always insisting on a controlling stake. Another option discussed at the time was to absorb it into his electric-car maker Tesla. Altman described "one particularly hair-raising moment [when] my co-founders asked what happens if you [Musk] die? [Musk] said: 'I hadn't thought about it tonnes but maybe control would pass to my children.'" "Elon said he would only work on companies that he totally controlled," Altman said. "I was extremely uncomfortable with it. Part of the reason that we started OpenAI was that we didn't think [artificial general intelligence] should be under the control of one person, no matter how good their intents are." Although Musk said he would cede some of his power over time, "he was unwilling to commit in writing that he would not have long-term control", Altman added. Altman, who ran start-up incubator Y Combinator, said he had a lot of experience with founders and had observed that they usually refused to give up power when things were going well. He cited rocket maker SpaceX as an example, highlighting the super-voting shares that Musk is reportedly asking for ahead of its initial public offering this year. Ilya Sutskever, another OpenAI co-founder, told the Oakland court on Monday that Musk pushed for control of the company because he felt his other businesses had suffered when he loosened his grip. Altman said he was "annoyed" when he found out Musk was starting a competitive AI effort at Tesla and was trying to poach OpenAI staff. A concern was that Musk is "known to be mercurial. People wondered if he would take a vengeance out on us or something," Altman said. He added that his feelings were "mixed" about Musk's departure because "he didn't understand how to run a good research lab. He demotivated our key researchers." Altman said Musk had asked president Greg Brockman and Sutskever to make a list of researchers and their accomplishments and rank them so they could "take a chainsaw through", which seriously damaged morale. Musk quitting in 2018 "was a morale boost in some ways. [People thought] we're not going to have to work this way any more."

Closing arguments conclude in Musk v. Altman, jury to deliberate next week

The first phase of the Musk v. Altman trial concluded proceedings in federal court in Oakland, California, on Thursday after attorneys for Elon Musk and OpenAI presented their closing arguments to the jury. The nine-person jury, which is made up of six women and three men, will begin deliberating on Monday. The jury's verdict will be advisory, which means Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will make the final decision on liability. "You must decide the case solely on the evidence before you," Gonzalez Rogers told the jury Thursday morning, in reading out the formal instructions. "You will recall you took an oath to do so." Musk sued OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, the company's president, in 2024, alleging they went back on their commitment to keep the artificial intelligence startup a nonprofit and for unjustly enriching themselves. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI alongside Altman and Brockman in 2015, claims the roughly $38 million he donated to the company was used for unauthorized commercial purposes. During Thursday's proceedings, Musk's lawyer, Steven Molo, reiterated his arguments that OpenAI failed to open source its technology, prioritize AI safety and follow nonprofit customs and practices. He also claimed that OpenAI insiders and investors, including Altman, Brockman and Microsoft, enriched themselves at Musk's expense. Sarah Eddy and William Savitt, attorneys for OpenAI, pushed back on Molo's statements on Thursday. They said Altman and Brockman never made commitments to Musk about OpenAI's corporate structure, and that Musk's donations were spent and used properly. They also noted that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO filed the lawsuit only after launching his competing AI startup, xAI. "He never cared about the nonprofit structure," Eddy told the jury. "What he cared about was winning." Microsoft is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, and attorney Russell Cohen presented the company's closing arguments to the jury. Musk accused Microsoft, OpenAI's principal investor, of aiding and abetting the company's purported breach of charitable trust. Cohen said Microsoft had no knowledge of those events and couldn't have participated in them.

Musk, OpenAI lawyers begin closing arguments in landmark trial that could shape AI's future

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI began closing arguments Thursday in the landmark trial whose outcome could shape the future of artificial intelligence. Musk, the world's richest man, was a co-founder of OpenAI, the company that launched in 2015 and went on to create ChatGPT. After Musk invested $38 million in its first years, his lawsuit filed in 2024 accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his top deputy of shifting into a moneymaking mode behind his back. One of the jury's tasks is to decide if Musk filed his lawsuit in time. Much of the testimony has centered on OpenAI's early years after its 2015 founding, but there's a relatively short timeline to allege the claims Musk is making of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment. OpenAI has argued that Musk waited too long and cannot claim harms that occurred before August 2021. The judge wrote in a court filing last month that "if the jury finds that Musk failed to file his action within the statute of limitations, it is highly likely" that she will "accept that finding and direct verdict to the defendants." If the jury decides that the lawsuit was filed in time, they then have to decide if OpenAI had a "charitable trust" and that OpenAI and its executives broke that trust. Musk's other claim means jurors must determine whether Altman, Greg Brockman -- co-founder and president -- and OpenAI unjustly enriched themselves at Musk's expense. For Microsoft, a co-defendant in the trial, the jury has to decide whether the company aided and abetted that breach. Musk's attorney, Steven Molo, told jurors Thursday morning that the Tesla CEO is "sorry he could not be here." Musk is in China with President Donald Trump and other prominent tech executives.

'Feuding tech bros' go head to head in legal showdown. But what does it mean for the future of AI?

Elon Musk and Sam Altman battle it out in court, and the outcome could carry significant ramifications for how AI development is shaped. There was a time when Elon Musk and Sam Altman were friends. But the two tech billionaires are now embroiled in a bitter legal battle in the United States that could reshape not just OpenAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) firm behind ChatGPT they cofounded in 2015, but also the future of the technology more broadly. Launched by Musk in 2024, the lawsuit is the culmination of a years-long feud that centers on the evolution of OpenAI from a non-profit to a for-profit enterprise. The trial, which kicked off this week in California, is expected to last roughly three weeks. But its ripple effects could be felt for many years to come. The case and the cast The lawsuit pits Musk against Altman, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, OpenAI itself, and Microsoft, the AI firm's largest backer. Musk cofounded and helped fund OpenAI to the tune of about US$44 million. By his own account from the witness stand this week, he "came up with the idea, the name, recruited the key people, taught them everything I know, provided all of the initial funding". Brockman served as technical cofounder; Altman became chief executive in 2019. Their alliance with Musk fractured as the organization grew. Musk departed the board in 2018. He says he was pushed out. However, OpenAI says he walked when denied majority control. Musk subsequently launched his own rival AI venture, xAI, which is now part of SpaceX. What Musk is alleging As part of the lawsuit, Musk is alleging breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, false advertising and unfair business practices. His core claim is that Altman and Brockman induced him to donate on the understanding that any artificial general intelligence - or AGI - built at OpenAI would stay "open" and shared with humanity. Instead, Musk argues, the founders turned the charity into a "wealth machine". They did this in two stages. First, via a 2019 capped-profit subsidiary. Here, OpenAI's for-profit unit limited the returns, with the excess handed back to the nonprofit. Second, through a full restructure into a public benefit corporation, which is now valued at roughly US$852 billion. Musk's lawyers told jurors Altman and Brockman "stole a charity, full stop". Outside court, Musk has been throwing insults at his opponents, prompting the judge to threaten a gag order. OpenAI flatly rejects Musk's narrative. As its lead counsel, William Savitt, told jurors: The company alleges, as described in two pre-trial blog posts, that Musk himself proposed merging OpenAI with Tesla in 2017 and walked away when denied majority control. The lawsuit, OpenAI says, is "motivated by jealousy" and designed to damage a competitor. A company under pressure The trial arrives at a precarious moment for OpenAI. The New Yorker magazine recently published an investigation describing Altman as a "pathological liar". The investigation drew on an internal dossier compiled by OpenAI's former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever which alleged a "consistent pattern of lying" to the company's board. Altman called the piece "incendiary" but acknowledged "a bunch of mistakes". Musk has been amplifying the article to his X followers throughout the trial. Financially, OpenAI is bleeding. Internal projections point to roughly US$14 billion in losses for 2026 alone, with cumulative losses expected to top US$44 billion before any profit materializes. Shortly before the trial began, OpenAI quietly shut down Sora, its flagship video-generation model. Before closing, it burned around US$1 million a day in computing costs. The closure took down a US$1 billion Disney partnership with it. Even a fresh US$122 billion fundraise from Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank has not eased the pressure. What Musk wants Musk wants the jury to unwind OpenAI's for-profit conversion, remove Altman from the nonprofit board, and strip both Altman and Brockman of their roles in the for-profit entity. He is also demanding US$130 billion in damages from OpenAI -- for what his team calls "ill-gotten gains". He has accused Microsoft of "aiding and abetting" and argues it is liable for a share. His legal team argues OpenAI's existing models already constitute AGI, because they have surpassed human intelligence in many tasks. Under the founding agreement, AGI could not be commercially licensed. This would include the licence currently used by Microsoft for CoPilot. What's at stake If Musk wins, the consequences would be significant. OpenAI's planned initial public offering would almost certainly be derailed. This is expected in late 2026 at a US$1 trillion valuation. Investors in the recent funding round could face clawbacks. Altman, the public face of the AI boom, could be removed from the company he has led since 2019. The broader question of whether AI labs founded as charities can lawfully pivot into commercial enterprises would be settled, at least in California. This has potential implications for Anthropic and other mission-driven peers. Even a defeat for Musk would not end the controversy. The trial has already pried open Silicon Valley's normally sealed boardrooms, surfacing diaries, Slack threads and HR memos that paint an unflattering portrait of OpenAI's governance. The case crystallizes a wider public anxiety: an incredibly powerful technology is being built and controlled by a tiny number of feuding tech bros. And it's the rest of us who have to live with the consequences. This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Live Updates: Lawyers for Elon Musk, OpenAI to Make Final Case in Blockbuster Trial

Mr. Musk, Sam Altman and other A.I. researchers founded OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015, vowing to freely share its technology with the rest of the world. But Mr. Musk left the start-up in 2018 after a power struggle with Mr. Altman -- and before the public launch of ChatGPT in 2022 that catapulted OpenAI to commercial success. Over three weeks, Mr. Musk's legal team has laid out the billionaire's case that OpenAI and its leadership breached the start-up's founding agreement by putting commercial gain over the public good. They called a string of high-profile witnesses, including Microsoft's chief executive, Satya Nadella, and the president and another co-founder of OpenAI, Greg Brockman. Mr. Musk spent three days on the stand at the beginning of the trial, reiterating a simple message at the heart of his case: "It is not OK to steal a charity." This week, OpenAI's legal team countered that allegation, showing that Mr. Musk had repeatedly told his co-founders that the start-up needed more funding and that he had also suggested it take on a for-profit structure. The company's star witness was its chief executive, Mr. Altman, who spent part of Tuesday making that case. The stakes are high. Mr. Musk is asking for more than $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, OpenAI's primary partner, and said any damages would be shared with the OpenAI nonprofit. He is also asking the court to remove Mr. Altman from the start-up's board and to stop a shift the company made last year to operate as a for-profit company. If Mr. Musk loses, Mr. Altman would likely solidify control of OpenAI, which is now valued at about $730 billion. And the company would be free to pursue a data center expansion plan that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars as it appears headed toward one of the biggest initial public offerings in history. In arguing that OpenAI breached its founding agreement, Mr. Musk's suit did not cite a particular contract or other founding document. No such document is believed to have ever existed. For that reason, his legal team has attempted to prove his case through conversations, emails, text messages and other documents from the years during which he and others founded and built the A.I. lab. The case boils down to how each side remembers and portrays any agreements that were made during that time. A nine-person jury must decide unanimously whom to believe. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied the suit's claims.) Here's what else to know:

Sam Altman: Elon Musk wanted control of OpenAI even after death

Elon Musk tried to take control of OpenAI and went as far as suggesting the company would be passed onto his children when he died, Sam Altman claimed on Tuesday. Altman is a co-founder and chief executive of the artificial intelligence (AI) company, which is responsible for ChatGPT. He is being sued by Musk, who accuses him of having "looted a charity" given OpenAI began as a non-profit. However, appearing before a federal jury in Oakland, California, Altman said Musk not only backed the idea of OpenAI becoming a for-profit business, but planned to take control of it in the long-run. "A particularly hair-raising moment was when my cofounders asked, 'If you have control, what happens when you die?' He said something like '...maybe it should pass to my children.'"

Jury deliberations to begin in OpenAI nonprofit trial after Musk skips closing for Beijing

Three weeks of testimony in Judge Gonzalez Rogers's Oakland courtroom end with Musk in Beijing on Trump's state-visit delegation and deliberations beginning Monday. Closing arguments in Musk v. Altman wrapped on Thursday afternoon in Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers's Oakland courtroom, sending the nine-person jury home for the weekend and into deliberations that begin Monday. Three weeks of testimony, depositions, and a parade of Silicon Valley witnesses, including Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, and Elon Musk himself, have reduced to two competing summary readings: that Altman and Brockman "stole a charity," as Musk's counsel told the jury, or that Musk "didn't get his way at OpenAI," as the defence framed it. Musk was not in the room for the closing. His attorney issued an apology on his behalf to the jury, citing his presence on Donald Trump's Beijing delegation, where he sat alongside Tim Cook, Jensen Huang, and Larry Fink for the parallel state visit. The absence at the closing of the largest civil trial in his life is the kind of detail Musk's legal team appears to have judged less damaging than the optics of skipping a Trump-led foreign trip. The case, as we have tracked since its opening in late April, turns on two claims: that OpenAI's 2025 recapitalisation, which converted the original nonprofit into a more conventional capped-profit structure with a $350 billion valuation reading at the latest round, breached the charitable trust under which Musk made his roughly $38 million in early donations between 2015 and 2017; and that Altman, Brockman, and Microsoft were unjustly enriched in the process. Microsoft is a co-defendant on an aiding-and-abetting theory. The most pointed piece of trial evidence, Brockman's 2017 personal journal, described OpenAI's nonprofit framing as "a lie." Musk is seeking up to $134 billion in disgorgement, none of which would go to him personally; he renounced personal benefit on the stand, framing the relief as a return to OpenAI's nonprofit foundation. He also asked the court to remove Altman and Brockman from their roles and to unwind the recapitalisation. Musk has framed the case as a precedent-setter on whether founders can pull a charity into a commercial vehicle without the original donors' consent. OpenAI's defence rested on a narrower factual claim: that Altman and Brockman never made enforceable commitments to Musk about corporate structure, that Musk's donations were spent on the research mission as agreed, and that the recapitalisation followed the legal procedure California's attorney general has approved. Microsoft's counsel argued separately that its $13 billion of cumulative investment was the very thing that kept OpenAI alive long enough to build what Musk now wants returned, with Nadella's trial testimony framing the deal as Microsoft's defence against becoming "the next IBM." Two procedural points matter for how the verdict lands. The jury is technically advisory; Gonzalez Rogers retains the final say on remedies and has indicated she will likely follow the jury's reading but is not bound to. And the trial is structured in two phases, with liability decided first and remedies addressed in a separate proceeding, in which the judge alone decides what disgorgement, structural relief, or unwinding actually follows from any liability finding. A jury finding for Musk on Monday or Tuesday does not, in itself, remove Altman from his job. What the verdict will indicate, even at the liability stage, is whether the jurors are persuaded that nonprofit-to-profit conversions of the kind OpenAI executed are a category of corporate behaviour the courts should police. The case has been described by both sides, with rare agreement, as one that will shape the next decade of governance for AI labs that started as charities and have ended as the most valuable private companies in the world. Anthropic and others have watched closely. Deliberations begin Monday in Oakland. The remedies phase, if reached, would be heard by Gonzalez Rogers alone in a separate proceeding later this year.

Microsoft's CTO testifies about email at the heart of Elon Musk's allegations against the tech giant

Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott took the stand Wednesday and, for the first time, publicly addressed the internal email that Elon Musk's lawyers have cited to support allegations that Microsoft knew OpenAI was abandoning its nonprofit mission before investing billions in the company. That email, sent by Scott on March 7, 2018, read in part, "I wonder if the big OpenAI donors are aware of these plans? Ideologically, I can't imagine that they funded an open effort to concentrate ML [machine learning] talent so that they could then go build a closed, for-profit thing on its back." Musk alleges in the suit that Sam Altman and OpenAI secured his donations to found a nonprofit AI lab and then, with Microsoft's help, converted it into a for-profit venture that enriched its leaders. On the stand Wednesday, Scott said he was asking whether OpenAI even had standing to pursue the commercial plans it was pitching to Microsoft, not raising bigger questions about its mission. He explained that both companies were behind Google in AI, that OpenAI had recently left Azure for Google, and that he was worried the conversations would be "a big distraction." Scott said the OpenAI donor he had in mind was not Musk but rather his friend Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder, who sat on both the Microsoft and OpenAI boards. But later that year, Scott testified, over dinner with Altman and retired Microsoft exec Craig Mundie at Flea Street Cafe in Menlo Park, he learned a key detail: Hoffman, the donor he had wondered about, was actually investing in OpenAI's new for-profit entity and joining its board. Also at the dinner, Scott said he learned that OpenAI was raising a $500 million round, that Altman was leaving Y Combinator to lead the company full time, and that OpenAI had created a new "capped profit" corporate structure as part of the new funding round. Scott called that structure "surprising and interesting" -- something he said he had never seen before. The path to a deal: But Microsoft was still far from committing. Scott testified that the company had "a substantial amount of diligence we needed to do," including technical, financial, legal, and governance. By June 2019, the stakes were becoming more clear. In a confidential memo at the time, filed as an exhibit in the case, Scott and Microsoft CFO Amy Hood formally asked Microsoft's board to approve a $1 billion investment in OpenAI. Scott warned that Google had used its proprietary AI training infrastructure to pull ahead, and that Microsoft was "scrambling to replicate" the results. Without OpenAI, Scott wrote in an appendix to the memo, Microsoft faced "gaps in experience and talent" that would make building its own program "time-consuming and risky." A key part of the strategic case was that Microsoft needed what Scott called a "frontier AI workload" on Azure -- a customer pushing the platform at a scale that would reveal what infrastructure needed to be built. Google had that advantage; Microsoft did not. The board approved the investment. Microsoft announced the deal in July 2019, the first investment in a multi-year partnership that would see Microsoft commit a total of $13 billion to OpenAI. Within six months of that first deal, the companies had built their first AI supercomputer together, and OpenAI used the computing horsepower to train what would become known as GPT-3. On the stand Wednesday, Scott called the partnership a success. "I'm very proud of our infrastructure capabilities," he said, adding that he was proud overall of what Microsoft enabled OpenAI to do. Pushback from Musk's team: One of Musk's lawyers challenged elements of Scott's account in a brief but pointed cross-examination. For example, Scott had testified that he did not have any understanding when writing the March 2018 email of whether OpenAI was releasing its technology as open source. Musk's lawyer showed Scott an email he had received earlier, in which Microsoft chief scientist Eric Horvitz wrote OpenAI had "been sharing their work openly, per their basic tenet." Scott confirmed he received it. Musk's lawyer also pressed the Scott on whether Microsoft had conducted legal due diligence specifically for compliance with nonprofit law. Scott said he didn't know, adding that the legal work was handled by others on Microsoft's team. New financial details: Also on the stand Wednesday, Microsoft corporate development leader Michael Wetter addressed the scale of Microsoft's commitment to OpenAI. He testified that Microsoft's total spending related to OpenAI -- including its $13 billion in investment commitments, Azure infrastructure, and hosting costs -- is "upwards of $100 billion" as of this fiscal year end in June. Wetter testified that Microsoft had generated approximately $9.5 billion in direct revenue from the partnership through March 2025. Separately, The Information reported this week that Microsoft's total OpenAI-related revenue (including Azure server rentals, Copilot sales, and revenue-sharing payments) exceeded $30 billion between 2023 and 2025. Under their deal announced last fall, Microsoft received a stake of roughly 27% in OpenAI, with a commitment by OpenAI to spend $250 billion on Microsoft's Azure cloud services. On cross-examination by a lawyer for Musk, Wetter acknowledged that Microsoft, having contributed 98% of the capital in OpenAI's for-profit entity at one point in time, held effective approval rights over major corporate transactions. This is a level of influence Musk's lawyers have argued amounted to control. Wetter said Microsoft has never rejected an approval request. Under the latest renegotiation of their deal, announced as the trial began, OpenAI gained the ability to serve its products on any cloud platform, ending its exclusive commitment to Azure. Amazon Web Services quickly moved to offer OpenAI's models on its own platform. Microsoft's license to OpenAI's technology was extended through 2032 but became non-exclusive, and the companies removed a clause that could have cut Microsoft off from future models if OpenAI declared it had achieved artificial general intelligence. Musk's legal case: Lawyers for the SpaceX and Tesla founder have argued that Microsoft's approval rights gave it effective control over OpenAI's transformation from nonprofit to for-profit, and that the company proceeded despite its own CTO flagging the potential problem in 2018. Microsoft has maintained that it relied on OpenAI's contractual assurances that the partnership would not violate any third-party rights. Wetter testified that Microsoft found "no conditions related to Elon Musk" in its normal process of due diligence. Microsoft is named as a defendant in the case on allegations of aiding and abetting what Musk asserts was a breach of charitable trust by Altman and OpenAI in the for-profit conversion. What's next in the suit: Testimony in the case ended around 1 p.m. today in federal court in Oakland. Closing arguments are set for Thursday, with jury deliberations expected to begin on Monday. The jury will determine whether OpenAI breached its charitable trust and whether Altman and others were unjustly enriched. If the jury finds for Musk, the judge will determine the amount of financial damages. Musk is seeking up to $134 billion across all defendants, though U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has questioned the methodology behind those financial calculations. Musk, the world's richest person, has said he would donate the proceeds to charity. GeekWire reported on today's proceedings via the court's audio livestream.

'Directionally Very Bad': Everything You Missed During Week 2 of the Elon Musk vs OpenAI Trial

We're officially two weeks deep in the trial pitting Elon Musk against Sam Altman and OpenAI over the latter's allegedly illegal decision to convert their organization into a for-profit business. After last week's Musk-dominated time in front of the judge, the past few days have been primarily dominated by OpenAI's time in the barrel. While it's tough to get into a disreputable figure contest with Elon Musk, the fine folks at the world's biggest AI company certainly came out looking worse than when they started. In case you opted to just take the "a pox on both their houses" approach and tune out of the trial, here's a quick catch-up of the biggest moments you might have missed. OpenAI President Greg Brockman had to live every middle schooler's worst nightmare: reading his own diary in public. He admitted it was a nightmare on the stand, telling OpenAI's counsel that it was “very painful" and called the entries "very deeply personal writings that weren’t meant for the world to see." But see it they did. And Brockman's private thoughts, cherrypicked though they may be, did not reflect particularly well on his intentions. In one entry, Brockman asked himself, “Financially, what will take me to $1B?†and later wrote, “It would be nice to be making the billions," according to The Guardian. Hard to argue with him there; it would be nice to be making the billions. Starting a nonprofit probably isn't the best path to achieve it, though. That's something that Brockman also seemed to recognize. In another entry, he mused about the possibility of cutting Musk out of OpenAI and converting the company into a for-profit enterprise. “It’d be wrong to steal the non-profit from him. to convert to a b-corp without him. that’d be pretty morally bankrupt," he wrote, referencing Musk's role at the firm. He also acknowledged that he “Can’t see us turning this into a for-profit without a very nasty fight," which was a pretty solid prediction, as it turns out. Sam Altman secured the dubious honor of having his text messages committed to the public ledger and immediately getting turned into a meme. OpenAI's past and present CEO came off as less than composed in a series of texts sent to then-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati while the company's board was in the process of removing him back in 2023. The exchange, documented by Business Insider, took place while Murati was on the phone with the board, which was getting ready to oust Altman. Clearly a bit concerned, Altman asked, "Can you indicate directionally good or bad?" saying that "others" are anxious. Murati responded, "directionally very bad," which is just an all-timer of a way to tell someone they are about to get fired. Despite that, Altman didn't seem totally convinced that was happening. When Murati said the board was "convinced about their decision," Altman asked, "for me to be fired? or some new thing?" seemingly hoping that actually all of this was about something else entirely and not his future. Turns out it was not. "Yes for you to be gone," Murati replied. Things didn't get better for Altman when Murati spoke about him directly rather than just in text. While on the stand, Murati admitted that she believed Altman had at times lied to her about AI safety protocols and said that she felt like he undermined her in her role as CTO, per Futurism. While lots of the juiciest tidbits of the trial come from the past being dredged up, one bit of drama occurred very recently: Just days before the trial was set to begin, Musk texted Brockman and tried to secure a settlement. When Brockman responded to suggest that both sides drop their claims and move on, Musk offered up what seems to be a pretty thinly veiled threat. “By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be," he wrote. It does seem like both Altman and Brockman have taken a bit of a reputational hit as a result of what has been revealed during the trial. But there is one really big obstacle in the way of them becoming the most hated men in America: Elon Musk still exists. It's strange to think Elon Musk's penchant for producing offspring matters as it relates to this case, but the fact is that his biggest ally happened to work with him at OpenAI and is also the mother of four of his children. Last week, we learned that Shivon Zilis lives with Musk and the relationship is... complicated. Musk called her his “chief of staff†and “close advisor," but never girlfriend or romantic partner. We got additional details this week, though how clarifying they are is questionable. According to The Verge, Zilis denied ever being Musk's chief of staff. She described their relationship as being “friends and colleagues" who also happened to have a "one-off" that was "romantic in nature." That was around 2017. Then in 2021, she had two kids with Muskâ€"twins who were conceived via IVF. She described their relationship at that time as "platonic." She didn't tell anyone, including her own father, that she was pregnant until after the kids were born. She admitted that Musk's war with OpenAI "pruned my friend network." And then she apparently had two more kids with him. Whatever lifestyle works for you. Perhaps the most interesting bit of drama to come out of this week is the revelation that Musk's major protestation that turning OpenAI into a for-profit amounts to a dereliction of duty and an affront to everything they stood for might not be as genuine as he's presented it. The biggest bit of evidence: Musk himself seemingly floated the idea of going the for-profit route. According to The Verge, Zilis' testimony included emails from 2017 and 2018. At one point, she mentioned that it was discussed that OpenAI “switch to for profit in next couple of weeks (woah fast!).†That is apparently an idea that Musk was involved with batting around. In another email, Zilis apparently offered Musk some ideas to kickstart Tesla's AI efforts. "One was making OpenAI a public benefit corporation subsidiary of Tesla. One was getting Altman as an 'anchor' for TeslaAI," she wrote, which doesn't seem like the kind of thing someone who is insistent on a company remaining a non-profit would consider. Zilis wasn't the only one who was seemingly under the impression that a for-profit shift wasn't completely off the table. Brockman testified that, after the company achieved a milestone in 2017, Musk said it was “time to make the next step for OpenAI.†Brockman interpreted that as meaning it was time to start a for-profit, per The Guardian. In fact, he claims they discussed that very thing with Musk at a party. According to Brockman's telling, Musk ultimately issued an ultimatum: he would have full control over a for-profit arm of OpenAI, or the organization would stay a non-profit. So, seemingly, the issue wasn't so much about maintaining OpenAI's mission as it was about Musk maintaining control.

OpenAI chief Altman has over $2 billion stake in companies that dealt with OpenAI, court filing shows

OAKLAND, California, May 13 (Reuters) - OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman holds more than $2 billion in companies that have done business with the artificial intelligence company, a court document showed as Altman faces claims of self-dealing from state attorneys general and Elon Musk, as well as a U.S. congressional investigation. The list of investments was shown in court on Tuesday in hearings on Musk's lawsuit seeking $150 billion in damages as well as Altman's removal as an officer and board member. Musk's claims include breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment. Altman has rejected those claims and in court described recusing himself from key discussions with companies in which he invested. Ten U.S. attorneys general on Tuesday also asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to scrutinize documents from OpenAI ahead of an expected initial public offering, and the ⁠U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week asked Altman for information on OpenAI policies to prevent conflicts of interest. In court on Tuesday, Musk's lead trial lawyer Steven Molo exhibited a document that revealed Altman's holdings in nine companies that had done business with OpenAI and their fair market value as of December 31, 2025. COMPANY STAKES Altman does not hold direct equity in OpenAI, although he has amassed a $4 billion net worth, according to Forbes estimates, through venture capital investments he made prior to and during his tenure at OpenAI. The list of companies with OpenAI deals included a $1.7 billion stake in fusion power company Helion Energy, a $633 million stake in financial software company Stripe, and $258 million in anti-aging pharmaceutical company Retro Biosciences, all of which have OpenAI deals. The document also revealed Altman had sold off a stake in Reddit (RDDT.N), opens new tab by the end of 2025. Altman's holdings were worth more than $600 million on the day the company went public ⁠in 2024, according to SEC filings at the time. The other companies on the list included chip maker Cerebras, people management software maker Degree, which is known as Lattice, AI device maker Humane, AI software maker Software Applications and AI pharmaceutical company Trialspark, now known as Formation Bio. Altman was friends with Helion's founders and first invested in the company in 2015, he testified. The company, which is aiming to build the world's first fusion power plant, does not generate any revenue but has been valued in the private market ⁠at $5.4 billion. Altman testified that he asked OpenAI's board to explore working with Helion in late 2022 and that he vouched for it being a good deal. Helion first signed an agreement to secure future energy for OpenAI in 2024. Altman stepped down from Helion's board in March 2026, as the companies explored a larger deal. Altman said of the 2024 deal ⁠that he was "recused from it on both sides" and did not sign the agreement. Molo said Altman had an "obvious conflict" in spearheading negotiations for a May 2024 content partnership between OpenAI and Reddit. "We decided that the board would approve any final terms," Altman said. "I had other people in the room with me. This was a ⁠well-discussed standard corporate recusal." Molo also questioned Altman about a $10 billion computing deal with Cerebras, in which Altman holds a stake worth $3.2 million. The attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and West Virginia, all Republicans, told the SEC, "Altman's conduct to date raises serious legal questions and demands close scrutiny." The SEC declined to comment. Reporting by Kenrick Cai and Deepa Seetharaman in Oakland, California; editing by Peter Henderson and Nick Zieminski Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Artificial Intelligence * Securities Enforcement * Capital Markets * Corporate Counsel * Corporate Governance Kenrick Cai Thomson Reuters Kenrick Cai is a correspondent for Reuters based in San Francisco. He covers Google, its parent company Alphabet and artificial intelligence. Cai joined Reuters in 2024. He previously worked at Forbes magazine, where he was a staff writer covering venture capital and startups. He received a Best in Business award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing in 2023. He is a graduate of Duke University. Reach him on Signal at @kenrick.01.

Satya Nadella says the attempt to remove Sam Altman from OpenAI was 'amateur city'

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said the OpenAI board's abortive attempt to oust Sam Altman in 2023 was "amateur city" as he took the stand in the high-stakes legal battle between the AI lab and Elon Musk. Nadella told the jury on Monday he never received "a specific answer" about why the board fired Altman, citing concerns about dishonesty, before reinstating him days later. The episode has cast a shadow over Altman's reputation -- something Musk has exploited, branding him "Swindly Sam" as he pursued the case arguing OpenAI betrayed its charitable mission. OpenAI's board said at the time that Altman was removed because he was "not consistently candid", something Nadella agreed would be grounds to fire a CEO. But, questioned by Musk's lawyers about why he supported Altman, Nadella said: "Whenever I asked specifically why Sam was fired, [the board] never gave me a specific answer." "It was amateur city as far as I'm concerned," he said. Microsoft's CEO was testifying in a case Musk brought in which the $3tn software giant -- OpenAI's largest investor -- is accused of "aiding and abetting" the AI lab and Altman in selling out its non-profit mission to become a for-profit business. Victory for Musk, who made early financial contributions to OpenAI as a non-profit, could upend the $852bn start-up's plans to go public this year. Nadella's testimony, and internal messages presented in court, also betray his concerns about the software group's strategic position as OpenAI's popularity grew. Ahead of a $10bn investment in OpenAI, Nadella emailed Microsoft executives in 2022 "to figure out how to continue the partnership in a more aligned way". "I don't want to be IBM and OpenAI to be Microsoft," he wrote. IBM struck a deal in the 1980s for a fledgling Microsoft to build an operating system for its personal computers that ultimately led the software group eclipsing the computer maker. Asked what he meant by the email, Nadella said he wanted to avoid "slipping into a situation . . . where Microsoft [did not have] its own self-sufficiency". A few months later, Nadella emailed Microsoft's chief financial officer Amy Hood to flesh out the concerns: "Right now we are a very thin layer on top of Nvidia and all the IP is with OpenAI . . . if we are going to spend this kind of money and not have control of destiny, it makes no sense." Microsoft has since struck several deals with OpenAI to restructure their relationship and tried to increase its independence in AI. The Big Tech company now owns about 27 per cent of OpenAI, valued at just over $200bn. According to disclosures in the trial, in 2016 Microsoft was offering OpenAI heavily discounted cloud computing access. By 2018, with OpenAI's computing bills increasing, "we were not comfortable thinking of it as a marketing expense", Nadella said. "This was one you started to think 'enough of the charity, on with the business'?" asked Steven Molo, an attorney for Musk. "Yeah," Nadella responded. Microsoft invested $1bn in 2019, $2bn in 2021 and a further $10bn in 2023, helping to support OpenAI's transition since 2015 from a small research lab into one of the most valuable for-profit companies in the world. "[The investment] has worked out very, very, very well for Microsoft hasn't it?" Molo asked Nadella on Monday. Microsoft's CEO replied: "Because we were the only ones who took the risk."

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella takes stand in Musk v. Altman trial

Nadella, wearing a navy suit with a blue tie, began his testimony by answering questions about his role at Microsoft and the early days of the company's strategic partnership with OpenAI. In 2024, Elon Musk sued OpenAI, its CEO, Sam Altman, and its president, Greg Brockman, alleging that they went back on their vow to protect the artificial intelligence company's nonprofit structure and follow its charitable mission. Microsoft is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, as Musk accuses the company of aiding and abetting OpenAI's purported breach of charitable trust. Microsoft has been one of OpenAI's major backers since 2019, years before the company rocketed into the mainstream with the launch of its ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022. Microsoft's more than $13 billion worth of investments in OpenAI, including a $1 billion investment in 2019, a $2 billion investment in 2021 and $10 billion in 2023, have come up repeatedly over the course of the trial. Musk, who testified late last month, said Microsoft's $10 billion investment was the key tipping point that made him believe OpenAI was violating its nonprofit mission. He testified that the scale of the investment bothered him, and it prompted him to open a legal investigation into OpenAI. "I was concerned they were really trying to steal the charity," Musk said from the stand.

Sam Altman has been targeted in a backlash against A.I.

Mr. Altman's testimony, coming in the third week of a blockbuster trial in Oakland, Calif., was intended to pierce Mr. Musk's claim that no one person should control the future of artificial intelligence, and to show that the billionaire was on board with OpenAI's shift into a commercial venture. Mr. Altman is defending himself and his company against allegations by Mr. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI, that the start-up betrayed its founding mission as a nonprofit dedicated to the creation of A.I. that is safe for the world. After Mr. Musk left the company following a power struggle in 2017, Mr. Altman attached a for-profit company to OpenAI and raised billions of dollars from investors. That decision -- which helped set off the global A.I. boom with the launch of ChatGPT -- is at the crux of Mr. Musk's case. "It is not OK to steal a charity," Mr. Musk said during his first day on the stand last month. On Tuesday, Mr. Altman disputed that sentiment. "It feels difficult to even wrap my head around that framing," he said. Mr. Musk's team has tried to portray Mr. Altman as a slippery operator who says different things to different people. In tense cross-examination that prompted gasps in the courtroom, Mr. Musk's lead counsel, Steven Molo, attacked Mr. Altman's credibility, with the executive responding quietly and tersely. At one point, Mr. Molo asked him directly, "Are you completely trustworthy?" "I believe so," Mr. Altman responded. Mr. Musk's legal team called a series of high-profile witnesses over the first two weeks of the trial, including Satya Nadella, Microsoft's chief executive; Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president and co-founder; and Shivon Zilis, Mr. Musk's business associate and the mother of four of his children. Mr. Musk was the victim of a bait-and-switch after he funded the nonprofit, his legal team argued. Now, it's OpenAI's turn. The start-up's lawyers have already argued that Mr. Musk's case is "sour grapes." They have said the timing of Mr. Musk's lawsuit, filed in 2024, years after OpenAI first pursued commercial investments, was intended to benefit his own A.I. start-up, xAI. Throughout witness cross-examinations, OpenAI's counsel has tried to show Mr. Musk also repeatedly tried to transform the A.I. lab into a for-profit company. Mr. Altman has much at stake. Mr. Musk is asking for more than $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, OpenAI's primary partner, and said any damages would be shared with the OpenAI nonprofit. He is also asking the court to remove Mr. Altman from the start-up's board and stop a shift the company recently made to operate as a for-profit company. If Mr. Musk loses, Mr. Altman would likely solidify control of OpenAI, which is now valued at about $730 billion. And the company would be free to pursue a data center expansion plan that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars as the A.I. start-up appears headed toward one of the biggest initial public offerings in history. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied the suit's claims.) Here's what else to know:

OpenAI's Sam Altman takes the stand to fend off Elon Musk's accusations he 'stole a charity'

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman walks inside the federal courthouse during a recess in the proceedings in the trial over Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI in Oakland, California, on May 12, 2026. JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images hide caption OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the stand on Tuesday to defend himself against accusations from co-founder-turned-adversary Elon Musk that he "stole a charity" by converting the maker of ChatGPT into a for-profit juggernaut. The trial, now in its third week, pits two of the tech world's biggest personalities against one another in a high-stakes clash that could usher in major changes for one of the world's leading artificial intelligence companies and potentially alter the AI landscape. Musk's lawyers made the case that OpenAI, Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman, with the help of investments from Microsoft, jettisoned OpenAI's founding mission of being a non-profit focused on creating advanced AI for the benefit of humanity. Instead, the Musk team argues that they enriched themselves by creating a for-profit subsidiary that now effectively controls the nonprofit. OpenAI's legal team has argued that Musk is motivated by sour grapes and is out to damage a competitor. And on the stand Tuesday, Altman pushed back against the notion that Musk actually cares about OpenAI. "Mr. Musk did try to kill it," he said, adding that Musk launched a competitor called xAI, tried to poach its talent, and alleged that he engaged in "business interference." The dispute goes back nearly a decade to when the founders of OpenAI -- including Musk -- decided they needed to create a for-profit entity in order to attract top talent and raise big money to develop competitive AI technology. Musk, who donated $38 million to OpenAI early on, wanted control of the for-profit; the other founders were against it. On the stand, Altman testified that the co-founders felt no single person should control AGI, or artificial general intelligence, and that Musk was not a good fit for the company. Musk left the board in 2018, and Altman called that a morale boost for employees who did not like his "hardcore" approach. The trial has opened a rare window into the machinations of some of Silicon Valley's most ambitious tech entrepreneurs as they debated the future of AI and wrangled over investment plans and control of OpenAI. It would go on to become a global leader in AI thanks to the launch of ChatGPT in 2022. OpenAI's lawyers have drawn on once-private text messages and emails to try to paint Musk as power-hungry and initially supportive of plans for the for-profit to attract huge investments. The OpenAI team also tried to undermine Musk's credibility by highlighting messages that appeared to show that he tried to poach talent from OpenAI before he left the company's board, and was kept appraised of its decisions after leaving by then-board member Shivon Zilis, who is the mother of four of Musk's children. Musk's lawyers, meanwhile, have tried to make the case that Altman and Brockman were intent on reaping personal profits from OpenAI despite its original nonprofit mission. OpenAI's nonprofit still exists, and owns the for-profit entity, now valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars. But Musk argues that it has been sidelined. While cross examining Altman, Musk's attorney Steven Molo tried to undercut his credibility, asking if he was trustworthy. "I believe so," said Altman. When Molo asked Altman if he always told the truth, Altman replied: "I'm sure there are some times in my life when I did not." Asked if he had been called a liar by business associates, Altman said: "I have heard people say that." If the United States District Court for the Northern District of California finds Altman, Brockman and Microsoft liable for Musk's two civil claims -- "breach of charitable trust" and "unjust enrichment" -- Musk has asked for them to "disgorge" up to $150 billion to the nonprofit entity. He is also seeking the unwinding of the for-profit and wants Altman and Brockman removed from their leadership roles. That could radically reshape OpenAI and potentially undercut its AI development efforts. Closing arguments are on Thursday, and a decision from an advisory jury and the judge overseeing the case, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, are possible next week.

Nadella feared Microsoft would become 'the next IBM' as $92B OpenAI return projection revealed at trial

Satya Nadella told a federal jury on Monday that he feared Microsoft would become "the next IBM" while OpenAI became the next Microsoft. The admission, drawn from an April 2022 internal email presented by Elon Musk's lead attorney, reveals the strategic anxiety that drove the largest corporate investment in artificial intelligence history. Microsoft did not put 13 billion dollars into OpenAI because it believed in a nonprofit mission to develop safe AI for the benefit of humanity. It invested because its CEO believed the company would become irrelevant if it did not. A January 2023 memo from Microsoft president Brad Smith to the company's board, also presented to the jury, projected a 92 billion dollar return on that cumulative investment, with a 20 per cent annual escalator starting in 2025. The document reframes the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership from a technology collaboration into what may be the largest financial hedge in corporate history: a bet by the world's most valuable software company that it could not survive the AI era on its own. The IBM analogy is not casual. In the 1980s, IBM built the personal computer and outsourced the operating system to a small software company in Redmond, Washington. That decision made Microsoft and unmade IBM. Nadella was telling his team that the same dynamic was forming in AI. OpenAI was building the reasoning engine. Microsoft was building the cloud infrastructure. If OpenAI became the platform and Microsoft became the commodity, the company that defined enterprise software for four decades would fade into the same irrelevance as the company that defined enterprise hardware for three. Musk's attorneys presented the email to suggest that Microsoft's investment was commercially motivated from the beginning, undermining OpenAI's nonprofit origins. Nadella's response was to defend the partnership as mutually beneficial. But the email speaks for itself. The CEO of Microsoft was not writing about advancing AI safety. He was writing about survival. Brad Smith's 92 billion dollar projection landed on the Microsoft board's desks one month before the company publicly announced its expanded 10 billion dollar investment in OpenAI. The memo included a 20 per cent annual escalator from 2025, meaning the projected return would compound as OpenAI's models became more commercially valuable. At the time, ChatGPT had been public for less than two months. The financial calculus was straightforward. Microsoft was the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI's models and held exclusive commercial rights to resell them through Azure. Every dollar of OpenAI revenue flowed through Microsoft infrastructure. The 13 billion dollars was not a donation to a nonprofit. It was a down payment on a distribution monopoly for the most important technology of the decade. OpenAI is now valued at 852 billion dollars. Microsoft holds 27 per cent of the for-profit entity that emerged from the October 2025 conversion. The nonprofit foundation that was supposed to govern the technology retains 26 per cent. The alignment between mission and money that OpenAI's founders promised has been replaced by a cap table. Under cross-examination, Nadella acknowledged that he was not aware of any full-time employees at the OpenAI nonprofit before March 2026. He could not identify any grants, research, or open-sourced technology the nonprofit had produced. He was not informed in advance that the board planned to fire Sam Altman in November 2023. He was never given clarity on why Altman was removed. The admissions paint a portrait of a partnership in which the investor knew everything about the commercial operation and nothing about the nonprofit governance. Musk's legal team wants the jury to conclude that the nonprofit was a shell. Nadella's testimony does not contradict that framing. It reinforces it from the perspective of the company that had the most to gain from the commercial side. The trial has spent three weeks accumulating testimony that dismantles every participant's stated motives. Greg Brockman, OpenAI's co-founder and president, disputed Musk's account of the startup's early days and testified that Musk had OpenAI employees do secret work on self-driving technology at Tesla. Brockman's own journals, presented as evidence, contained entries that called the nonprofit mission "a lie", undermining both Musk's claim that the mission was sacred and OpenAI's claim that it was preserved. Former board members Helen Toner and Natasha McCauley testified that Altman was untrustworthy, withheld information from the board, and sometimes lied. McCauley told the jury the board had "buckets of concerns" about Altman's leadership, including an incident in which Altman falsely claimed that OpenAI's legal department had cleared the GPT-4 Turbo launch in India without safety board review. The women who fired Altman in November 2023 told the jury why, and their reasons had nothing to do with Musk's lawsuit. Musk took the stand during the trial's first week and told the jury that OpenAI's leaders had duped him into bankrolling the company. He repeated a phrase that became the trial's refrain: "You can't just steal a charity." He argued he was not opposed to a small for-profit arm funding the nonprofit but lost trust in Altman when he learned about Microsoft's 10 billion dollar investment, texting Altman in late 2022: "What the hell is going on? This is a bait and switch." Then came the question about distillation. Asked whether xAI uses OpenAI's models to train Grok, Musk said it was a general industry practice. Asked whether that meant yes, he replied: "Partly." The admission that his own AI company copies the technology he claims was stolen from a charity drew audible gasps in the courtroom. Musk told the jury the case would set a precedent for "looting every charity in America" while simultaneously acknowledging that he was using the charity's output to build a competitor. Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member and the mother of four of Musk's children, testified that Musk tried to recruit Altman to lead a new AI lab at Tesla. He offered Altman a Tesla board seat. He asked Andrej Karpathy to send a list of top OpenAI researchers to poach. The man suing for breach of charitable trust was, according to the testimony of his own witness, actively trying to strip the charity of its leadership and talent. Altman took the stand on Monday. He testified that Musk's departure from OpenAI's board in 2018 was a "morale boost" for some employees because Musk had demotivated key researchers by ranking their accomplishments. Altman told the jury that Musk left because he lost confidence in the project and wanted long-term control that the other founders would not grant him. In a tense exchange, Musk's attorney confronted Altman with a text message he sent Musk on 18 February 2023: "I'm tremendously thankful for everything you've done to help. I don't think that OpenAI would have happened without you." The implication was that Altman privately acknowledged Musk's contribution while publicly diminishing it. The text was sent three months after Musk learned about the Microsoft investment and seven months before the board fired Altman. The trial began with 150 billion dollars at stake over whether OpenAI's conversion from nonprofit to for-profit corporation was a breach of charitable trust. Musk wants the court to unwind the conversion, oust Altman and Brockman, and direct damages to the nonprofit. OpenAI argues Musk is suing because he wanted control of the most valuable AI company in the world and did not get it. While the trial plays out in Oakland, Microsoft is quietly proving that Nadella learned the IBM lesson. Microsoft dropped its exclusive licence to OpenAI's technology, retaining only a non-exclusive agreement through 2032. It did so voluntarily, which makes sense only if Microsoft no longer needs exclusivity because it has alternatives. It does. Microsoft launched three in-house AI models that directly challenge the partner it spent 13 billion dollars cultivating. The company that feared becoming IBM responded by doing what IBM never did: building its own operating system before the partner could lock it out. Nadella's April 2022 fear that Microsoft would become dependent on OpenAI appears to have been the founding anxiety of an entire corporate strategy designed to ensure it never would. The trial is expected to continue through 21 May before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. The jury will decide whether OpenAI's leaders breached a charitable trust and whether Musk is owed restitution. But Nadella's testimony has already answered a different question. The most powerful corporate backer of the nonprofit AI mission invested because he was afraid his company would die without it. The 92 billion dollar return projection was not a byproduct of the partnership. It was the point. The nonprofit wrapper that Musk claims was stolen may never have contained what any of the parties involved believed it did.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's stake in Helion Energy draws scrutiny in Musk trial and on Capitol Hill

Sam Altman faced pointed questions Tuesday about his personal financial ties to Helion Energy, the Everett, Wash., fusion startup that's aiming to supply vast amounts of energy to both OpenAI and Microsoft to power future data centers for artificial intelligence. Testifying in the Musk v. Altman trial in Oakland, the OpenAI CEO confirmed under cross-examination that he owns roughly one-third of Helion, a stake valued at approximately $1.65 billion as of late 2025, according to financial disclosures in the case. Altman, who left the Helion board in March, said he consistently recused himself from OpenAI's dealings with the fusion company. Asked by Musk's lawyer Steven Molo to explain what that meant in reality, Altman said it covered "the decision to proceed and the final approval of terms." He noted that OpenAI has never bought or received any power from Helion but said a 2024 agreement was "a way for us to have the opportunity to do that in the future." Altman said he was aware of a second agreement in March 2026 but was not familiar with its details. He acknowledged that "a huge percentage" of his time at OpenAI is spent securing energy and compute resources, which he was previously doing while also chairing Helion's board. Helion has separately agreed to sell power from its first commercial fusion plant, under construction in central Washington, to Microsoft starting in 2028. Microsoft, OpenAI's longstanding partner and one of its largest investors, is also a defendant in the case. It was part of a broader argument by Musk's attorney that Altman used his position at OpenAI to boost the value of his personal investments. Financial disclosures in the case showed that Altman has a stake of more than $2 billion in companies that do business with OpenAI. Musk alleges in the lawsuit that Altman and other OpenAI leaders secured his donations to found OpenAI as a nonprofit before converting it into a for-profit venture, enriching themselves in the process. OpenAI and Microsoft, which is also a defendant, have countered that Musk supported the conversion and sought unilateral control of the company for himself. Molo also pressed Altman on his role negotiating a $200 million data deal between OpenAI and Reddit while holding a significant personal stake in the social media company. Altman said the deal arose from mediation under threat of legal action and that the board asked him to participate because he had the most context. The conflict-of-interest questions extend beyond the courtroom. The House Oversight Committee sent Altman a letter on May 8 requesting documents related to OpenAI's handling of potential conflicts, citing the Helion relationship specifically. In the letter, the Oversight Committee said it wanted to ensure that "funds donated for charitable purposes are not diverted for unintended uses, such as artificially increasing the market value of other companies in which an executive or board member may hold an interest." A group of Republican state attorneys general separately called on the SEC to scrutinize the issue ahead of OpenAI's planned IPO, the Wall Street Journal reported. In a statement to GeekWire, a Helion spokesperson called Altman a longtime champion of the company and expressed gratitude for his support, leadership and investment. "As Sam has shared, he recused himself from a potential deal between Helion and OpenAI," the spokesperson said. "Further, Sam stepped down from the board in March to allow the companies to explore future partnerships to bring zero-carbon, safe electricity to the world." Helion is not the only local company caught up in the issue. The WSJ also reported that Altman last summer approached Kent, Wash.-based rocket maker Stoke Space about partnering with OpenAI on data centers in space. Altman is an investor in Stoke through his family office. Helion, founded in 2013, is developing technology to generate electricity from nuclear fusion, the process that powers the sun. No company has yet demonstrated that fusion can produce commercially viable power, but Helion has raised more than $1 billion from investors and broke ground last summer on its first plant in Malaga, Wash. Altman has been one of the company's biggest backers, personally investing $375 million in a $500 million round in 2021 and joining as board chairman in 2015, shortly after recruiting the company into the Y Combinator startup accelerator. The Helion questions were part of a wide-ranging day on the stand for Altman. He also sparred with Musk's lawyer over accusations of dishonesty from former colleagues and defended his decision to return to OpenAI after being fired by the board in November 2023 -- saying he was "willing to run back into a burning building" to try to save the company and its mission. GeekWire reported on today's proceedings via the court's audio livestream. Updated after publication with Helion's statement.

Closing arguments begin in high-stakes Musk v OpenAI courtroom showdown

Jury set to deliberate and return a verdict on whether they believe AI firm and Altman are liable in case Closing arguments began on Thursday in Elon Musk's lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI, bringing the weeks-long courtroom battle between the two tech moguls nearer to a decision. A nine person jury is set to deliberate and return a verdict on whether they believe the AI firm and Altman are liable in the case. The trial, which began last month in an Oakland, California federal courthouse, has gripped Silicon Valley and featured some of the tech industry's biggest names as witnesses. Attorneys for both sides have presented testimony and documents that have exposed Musk and Altman's private dealings, as well as provided a window into the contentious history of OpenAI. Musk has sought to prove that Altman, OpenAI and its president Greg Brockman broke a founding agreement of the nonprofit company when they restructured it into a for-profit entity, accusing them of bilking him out of money and unjustly enriching themselves. OpenAI has rejected all Musk's claims, arguing that he is motivated by jealousy after a failed bid to take over the firm in 2018 and was always aware of plans to create a for-profit. They have also argued that OpenAI's nonprofit still oversees the company and is one of the most well-resourced charities in the world. In addition to arguments about corporate governance and nonprofit law, much of the case has focused on the personal and professional conduct of both Musk and Altman. Attorneys for Musk have cast Altman as a duplicitous operator seeking personal gain over OpenAI's original mission to use its technology to benefit humanity. OpenAI's lawyers have meanwhile depicted Musk as a vengeful and erratic mogul who is upset that he has fallen by the wayside in the tech industry's multi-trillion dollar AI race. During closing arguments, Musk's attorney Steven Molo hit on several themes he has been emphasizing throughout the trial, including questioning whether Altman is trustworthy. Molo listed several witnesses who testified that Altman was dishonest or misleading, suggesting that Altman ducked those allegations while on the stand with noncommittal and evasive language. "Sam Altman's credibility is directly at issue in this case," Molo said. "The defendants absolutely need you to believe Sam Altman. If you cannot trust him, if you do not believe him, they cannot win. It's that simple." Molo told jurors to imagine that they were on a hike and approached a scary-looking bridge that spanned a river hundreds of feet below. He asked them to imagine a woman was at the entrance to the bridge, telling them not to worry because the bridge was built on Altman's version of the truth. "Would you walk across that bridge? I don't think many people would," Molo said. Molo also presented a history of OpenAI where Musk decided to help start the company to counter Google's AI efforts and always intended it to be a nonprofit with the mission of saving humanity from a dystopian future. Whether Altman and Brockman ever explicitly agreed that Musk's financial backing was dependent on OpenAI remaining a nonprofit has been a central question in the case - one complicated by the lack of an explicit, written contract detailing the company's founding agreements. The trial has featured numerous dramatic moments that have showcased the years-long feud between Musk and Altman. Early in the trial, Musk repeatedly accused Altman of "stealing a charity" as he gained control of OpenAI. Altman, who took the stand this week, responded that "I agree you can't steal it. Mr Musk did try to kill it." There have been long lines outside the courthouse on most mornings as a mix of media and tech industry fanboys clamored to watch the proceedings. Inside the courtroom, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has strained to keep the tech moguls and their legal teams on track, repeatedly shutting down attempts to veer into talk of an AI apocalypse and other ideas beyond the boundaries of the case. Aside from a public relations battle, the case involves a tangible threat to OpenAI as it seeks to go public later this year at a $1tn valuation. Musk is seeking Brockman and Altman's removal from OpenAI as well as the reversal of its for-profit structure. The Tesla CEO also wants $134bn to be redistributed from OpenAI's for-profit into its nonprofit organization. If the jury finds Altman and OpenAI liable, it will be up to Judge Gonzalez Rogers to determine what remedies are appropriate.

Musk lawyers accuse OpenAI of deception in close of mega-trial

Why it matters: Musk wants CEO Sam Altman ousted as CEO and removed from OpenAI's board, as well as billions of dollars in damages, though he says he would donate any winnings back to OpenAI's nonprofit arm. Driving the news: In his closing argument, lawyer Steven Molo argued that OpenAI violated its nonprofit mission to pursue safe, powerful AI for the world -- and that its executives instead sought to reap personal gain through stock grants and self-dealing with entities in which they had financial stakes. * Molo put particular emphasis on Altman's trustworthiness, saying his claims of honesty were undercut by testimony from former colleagues Ilya Sutskever and Mira Murati as well as ex-board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley. Catch up quick: in 2024, Musk sued OpenAI, Altman, and President Greg Brockman, alleging OpenAI and its founders breached their duties to the charitable mission. Later that year Musk added Microsoft to the suit, saying it aided and abetted OpenAI's breach of its obligations. * In a trial that began last month, jurors have heard from some of the biggest names in AI, including Musk, Altman, OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, as well as a host of other former OpenAI employees and board members. The intrigue: This case is proceeding differently than many others. The jury's verdict is only advisory and the judge can decide to overrule it.

OpenAI chief Altman to take stand in OpenAI-Musk trial on Tuesday

May 12 (Reuters) - OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman will take the witness stand on Tuesday and Wednesday, the California court said, in a clash of tech titans over Elon Musk's lawsuit against the company. The trial, in its third week, may determine the future of OpenAI and its leadership, at a time when the company has raised hundreds of billions of dollars from large tech companies and investors, seeking to build out its computing power ahead of a potential trillion-dollar IPO. Musk's lawsuit alleges Altman ⁠and the AI startup persuaded him into giving $38 million to nonprofit OpenAI, only for the organization to abandon its charitable mission to benefit humanity and instead become a for-profit corporation. OpenAI says Musk knew about the for-profit plan but wanted control. The faceoff has generated interest throughout Silicon Valley and beyond, with testimony at times focusing on the personalities and leadership styles of the two men. Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever testified on Monday that he spent about a year gathering ⁠evidence for the ChatGPT maker's board that Altman had displayed a "consistent pattern of lying," for instance. Several other key witnesses, including current and former OpenAI executives, have testified in the trial so far, among them President Greg Brockman, former OpenAI technology chief Mira Murati and ⁠Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member who is also mother to four of Musk's children. Musk, who is seeking the removal of Altman and Brockman from their roles, has testified ⁠that OpenAI was his idea before executives looted it, saying his funding towards OpenAI was "specifically meant to be for a charity". Musk also said while he knew ⁠about early discussions on turning OpenAI into a for-profit company, he was reassured by Altman that it would remain a nonprofit. Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru, Deepa Seetharam and Kenrick Cai in Oakland, California; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

What's Happened So Far at the Musk v. OpenAI Trial

Andrew here. We've got an inside-the-courtroom report by Mike Isaac on the Musk v. OpenAI trial. I was fascinated to hear the diary entries of Greg Brockman, an OpenAI co-founder who testified this week, read aloud. Much of Brockman's testimony focused on his musings about the huge financial stakes of converting OpenAI from a nonprofit to a for-profit enterprise. Brockman also seemed to know that the process would probably lead to a battle with Musk, OpenAI's initial financial backer. "Can't see us turning this into a for-profit without a very nasty fight," he wrote, adding: "It'd be wrong to steal the nonprofit from him. That'd be pretty morally bankrupt." Brockman suggested that Musk would have a reasonable argument, writing: "He's really not an idiot. His story will correctly be that we weren't honest with him in the end about still wanting to do the for-profit just without him." More below. Three takeaways from the big A.I. trial At its core, the trial over Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI is a complicated, slightly navel-gazing legal battle over nonprofit contract law. It also happens to feature many of the main characters in the high-stakes race to develop superior artificial intelligence tools. Two weeks in, the jury trial has provided moments of drama and taken some interesting twists, reports Mike Isaac, who is covering the proceedings for The Times at the federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif. The context: Musk is suing OpenAI and Microsoft, the A.I. company's biggest outside investor, for $150 billion. He claims that Sam Altman, an OpenAI co-founder and now its C.E.O., defrauded him out of millions by changing OpenAI from a nonprofit to a for-profit company.

Closing arguments in blockbuster trial pitting Musk against OpenAI

Oakland (United States) (AFP) - Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI presented closing arguments Thursday in a blockbuster trial where the verdict could hobble ChatGPT's parent company in the breakneck race for AI supremacy. The three-week trial in Oakland, outside San Francisco, has seen a parade of Silicon Valley titans take the stand. World's richest person Musk is suing OpenAI over its pivot away from a scrappy non-profit into the $850 billion juggernaut behind ChatGPT. Musk claims OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman improperly used a $38 million injection he had hoped would sustain OpenAI as a research lab dedicated to developing AI technology for the good of humanity. For the nine-person jury, as Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers noted, their decision may come down to a simple question: who should they believe among the bickering billionaires? "A non-profit devoted to the safe development of artificial intelligence, open sourced as practical, for the benefit of humanity. You know, we're supposed to buy that," quipped Musk's attorney Steven Molo in his closing argument on Thursday, slamming Altman's integrity. OpenAI attorney Sarah Eddy countered with an attack on Musk. "Even the people who work for him, even the mother of his children, can't back his story," she said, referring to Shivon Zilis, a business associate of Musk with whom he has four children, who testified about her role as an intermediary between the tech executives. Musk, who was visiting China on Thursday as part of US President Donald Trump's delegation, left OpenAI in 2018 and continues to pursue lucrative AI projects through his company SpaceX. -- Petty revenge? -- OpenAI was founded as a non-profit in 2015, but established a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 as the AI race heated up. Altman and others insist this was necessary to raise the vast sums of money from investors required to compete in a costly and difficult field. Musk's legal case demands that OpenAI revert to non-profit status, a move that would stymie its position in the global artificial intelligence race against Anthropic, Google and China's Deepseek. As a non-profit, OpenAI would have to abandon its planned IPO and sever ties with powerful investors -- Microsoft, Amazon, and SoftBank -- whose funding is essential in the costly AI race. In that scenario, the jury would have to determine whether Microsoft -- the then-startup's first private investor with a $13 billion injection -- knowingly facilitated the company's deviation from its original mission. The jury's first task is to determine whether Musk, who initiated the case in 2024 -- six years after leaving OpenAI -- filed his lawsuit within the legally permitted time limit. If the answer is no, the case would end there. OpenAI argues Musk is motivated by petty revenge, having failed to seize majority control of the commercial entity. The trial has featured testimony from some of the top names in tech. Musk spent three days on the stand portraying himself as a selfless benefactor seeking to reconcile the advancement of AI with the preservation of humanity. Also appearing were OpenAI co-founder Brockman, who has since become one of the largest donors to President Donald Trump's camp, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Altman. The case has highlighted the mind-boggling sums of cash washing around AI companies as they forge ahead with a technology that is changing the way society lives and works. The jury, which serves in an advisory role in this trial, is expected to reach a verdict on any actual wrongdoing next week. The judge will make the final decision on liability and potential remedies. She has indicated she will likely follow the jury's advice.

Musk's attorney apologizes for his absence at trial during closing arguments

OAKLAND, Calif. -- A lawyer for tech billionaire Elon Musk apologized to jurors on Thursday for his client's absence from the courtroom and asked them not to read too much into it, as closing statements began in Musk's lawsuit against artificial intelligence startup OpenAI. "He's sorry that he could not be here, but I think you saw from his testimony that this is something that he's passionate about," said the lawyer, Steven Molo. As a three-week blockbuster federal trial neared its end, Musk was half a world away in China, joining President Donald Trump and other U.S. business executives on an official state visit. He traveled there a day earlier, despite the trial judge having told him that he was not excused from testimony and could be recalled to the stand. In Beijing, Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said that talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping had been "awesome." Musk's lawsuit centers around OpenAI's decision to create a for-profit arm with outside investors in order to pay for the researchers and computing power that fuel its research and its signature app, ChatGPT. Musk, a co-founder and early donor, alleges that OpenAI has betrayed its nonprofit origins, while OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, say that a nonprofit foundation still controls the organization and that Musk agreed with them about creating a for-profit arm. Though Musk initiated the case and pushed for it to go to trial, he has not been in court for two weeks. He testified in the trial for three days but has not returned since leaving the witness stand April 30. He was not recalled to the stand during the trial's evidence phase, which ended Wednesday. By contrast, Altman, who is a defendant in the lawsuit, was in the courtroom Thursday to hear closing statements from Molo and other lawyers. Molo was not specific with the jury about where Musk was, and Musk may not be done with his globetrotting. On Monday, which is scheduled to be the jury's first full day of deliberations, Musk is due to speak at a transportation and mobility conference in Israel. In their closing statements, the lawyers in the case battled over which billionaires were the most believable as witnesses. Molo, in his closing statement, told the jury that five witnesses under oath in the trial had called Altman a liar. He compared Altman's track record to a rickety bridge. "If a bridge was built on Sam Altman's reputation for telling the truth, I don't think you'd cross that bridge," he said. He also attacked Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman for getting rich off the organization, noting in particular Brockman's nearly $30 billion stake and Altman's investments in companies that have made deals with OpenAI. Molo told the jurors to ignore the fact that OpenAI's foundation arm has an even bigger stake in the for-profit side of the organization. The foundation's stake was valued at $130 billion last year. "If you go and rob a bank and you take $1 million from the bank, it's not a defense to say, 'I left $100 million in the bank," Molo said. Sarah Eddy, a lawyer for OpenAI and its executives, said that Musk was lying to the jury about his true intentions. She said there was no evidence that Musk, when he gave money to OpenAI in its early days, wanted it to remain a nonprofit, and she said Musk pushed on his own to create a for-profit arm in 2017. "Mr. Musk is the one whose testimony is contradicted by every witness and all the documents," she told the jury in her closing statement. "Mr Musk wanted to turn OpenAI into a for-profit company that he could control," she added, noting that Musk once proposed merging OpenAI into Tesla. Eddy also said that Musk waited too long to sue. Any complaints he's making now, she said, he could have made as far back as 2017 when OpenAI's co-founders discussed a pivot to a for-profit company in order to raise money. "In this case the statute of limitations is not a technical defense. It's a textbook case for why we have a statute-of-limitations defense in the first place," she said. "He could not bring a claim even if he had one, which he doesn't."

What did Sam Altman say at the Elon Musk OpenAI trial

OpenAI 's CEO Sam Altman took the witness stand on Tuesday to defend his business record in a trial pitting him against Elon Musk, rebutting testimony that disparaged his leadership at a pivotal time for the ChatGPT maker. The trial, now in its third week, could determine OpenAI's structure after it successfully raised billions of dollars in investment for its flagship artificial intelligence frontier model, ChatGPT. Musk's lawsuit alleges that Altman persuaded him to donate $38 million to OpenAI when it was a nonprofit, only for the company to shift to a for-profit corporate model in 2018. He argues that his funding was specifically going to a charity. Under a barrage of questions by a lawyer for Musk, Altman said he did not agree with trial testimony that depicted him as dishonest. "I believe I am an honest and trustworthy businessperson," Altman said. A jury that's already heard about Altman's character from a parade of his former allies and adversaries will ultimately decide the verdict. But the repercussions could reverberate widely. Altman said during his testimony that he had concerns about Musk's attempts to control OpenAI in its early years, as both men vied to be CEO in 2015. At the time, the company was trying to build a better-than-human type of AI called artificial general intelligence**.** "Part of the reason we started OpenAI is we didn't think AGI could be under the control of any one person, no matter how good their intents are," Altman said. For Altman, there was a "particularly hair-raising moment when my co-founders asked Mr. Musk about, well, 'If you have control, what happens when you die?'" Altman claimed that Musk said the control of OpenAI "should pass to my children," which Altman said he was not comfortable with. When OpenAI was just starting, Altman and Brockman intended to raise $100 million (€85.4 million) to get OpenAI off the ground in 2015, but Musk encouraged them to go to up to $1 billion (€854 million) in funding commitment, according to a 2024 OpenAI blog post. Musk said he would cover "whatever anyone else doesn't provide." However, to achieve AGI, Altman and Brockman realised they needed vast amounts of compute and "billions of dollars per year," more than they'd be able to raise as a non-profit, the blog said. With Musk, they decided to create a for-profit entity, but Musk wanted majority equity, board control, and to be CEO of the company, the blog post alleges. While negotiations went on, Musk reportedly withheld OpenAI's dedicated funding. Musk often tried to have Tesla, his car company, absorb OpenAI in a move that would not have aligned with the company's mission. OpenAI said in 2024 that Musk walked away from the company to build a relevant competitor to Google's DeepMind. Near the end of his testimony, Altman said he had thought incredibly highly of Musk during his early involvement with OpenAI, before things turned sour. "I felt like he had abandoned us, not come through on his promises, put the company in a very difficult place, jeopardised the mission, didn't really care about the things I thought he cared about," Altman said. "It's been an extremely painful thing for me ... to have someone that I respected so much not acknowledge that and continue to publicly attack us."

Musk v. Altman: Satya Nadella was worried about Microsoft being 'the next IBM' in OpenAI deal

Satya Nadella drew a historical parallel to Microsoft's early PC partnership with IBM as the tech giant prepared to invest $10 billion more in OpenAI in April 2022 -- writing in an internal email that he didn't want Microsoft to become IBM while OpenAI became the next Microsoft. That email, presented as evidence by Elon Musk's lead trial attorney Steven Molo, was one of the new details to emerge from the Microsoft CEO's turn on the stand Monday morning in Musk's lawsuit against Sam Altman, OpenAI and Microsoft in federal court in Oakland. Nadella described the decision to invest in OpenAI as a "one-way door," saying Microsoft couldn't build two supercomputers -- one for itself and one for OpenAI -- and had to accept the opportunity cost of diverting scarce computing resources away from its own AI teams. "We were outsourcing essentially a lot of the core IP development and taking a massive dependency on OpenAI," Nadella testified, explaining that he wanted to ensure Microsoft had access to the intellectual property generated by the partnership, and continued to build its own knowledge and capabilities at the same time. Board considerations unredacted: The testimony also provided new information from messages among Microsoft execs and Altman in the days following his brief ouster as OpenAI CEO in 2023. The names of potential candidates from that thread were previously redacted in public court records. From Nadella's testimony Monday, it emerged that two potential OpenAI board candidates for whom he voiced his disapproval were Diane Greene, the former Google Cloud CEO, and Bing Gordon, the veteran gaming exec and Kleiner Perkins partner previously on Amazon's board. Nadella said he objected to both as potential candidates because of their ties to companies that compete directly with Microsoft in AI. He said the discussions were initiated by Altman and other OpenAI insiders seeking his input, and that the board could have ignored his suggestions. One candidate he suggested, former Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond-Hellman, was later appointed to the board. Musk argues that Microsoft's efforts to protect its interests in the OpenAI partnership came at the expense of the OpenAI nonprofit's original mission to develop AI for the benefit of humanity. His lawsuit alleges that Microsoft aided and abetted a breach of the charitable trust that governed OpenAI's founding, misusing his original investment, estimated at $38 million to $44 million. Enabling a massive nonprofit: Nadella offered a different view on the stand, describing a collaboration built on mutual benefit in which Microsoft took on enormous risk to support a fledgling AI lab that no one else was willing to fund. He said the partnership had created "one of the largest nonprofits in the world," enabling products like ChatGPT and Copilot that put AI tools in the hands of millions of people. Under cross-examination, however, Nadella acknowledged that he was not aware of any full-time employees at the OpenAI nonprofit before March 2026, or of any grants, research, or open-sourced technology it had produced. Microsoft's lead attorney, Russell Cohen, also sought to undermine Musk's standing in the case. He walked Nadella through three major milestones in the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership -- the 2019 announcement, a 2020 exclusive license to GPT-3, and the 2023 $10 billion investment -- and asked each time whether Musk had reached out to object. Each time, Nadella said no. He and Musk have each other's phone numbers, he added. Microsoft estimates the OpenAI return: Musk's attorney, on cross-examination, sought to show the benefits Microsoft has received from the partnership. He walked Nadella through a January 2023 memo from Microsoft President Brad Smith to the company's board, projecting a $92 billion return on Microsoft's cumulative $13 billion investment in OpenAI. According to the testimony, a footnote in the memo showed a 20% annual increase kicking in starting in 2025, which could roughly double the return within four years. Under the restructured deal announced last year, the caps on Microsoft's returns were removed entirely. Microsoft and OpenAI also recently amended the partnership to make Microsoft's IP license non-exclusive and open all OpenAI products to any cloud provider. Nadella confirmed the figures but noted that the investment carried real risk, saying the return could just as easily have been zero. The trial, before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, is expected to continue through May 21, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also expected to take the stand this week. GeekWire reported on today's proceedings via the court's audio livestream.

Sam Altman defends OpenAI in courtroom showdown with Elon Musk

The OpenAI chief rejects claims he deceived Elon Musk as high-stakes AI trial nears its end The OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, took the stand on Tuesday to defend himself and his company against a lawsuit by Elon Musk. Altman is set to be one of the final witnesses in the trial, which has pitted two of the tech industry's most powerful men against each other in a dramatic courtroom showdown. Musk has accused Altman and OpenAI of breaking the AI firm's founding agreement by restructuring it into a for-profit enterprise, alleging that Altman essentially swindled him into co-founding the company and providing tens of millions in financial backing. Musk also claims Altman unjustly enriched himself in the process and is seeking the CEO's removal from OpenAI, the redistribution of $134bn to the firm's non-profit and the undoing of its for-profit conversion. OpenAI and Altman have rejected all of Musk's claims, arguing that he is motivated by jealousy after a failed bid to take over the AI firm in 2018 and a subsequent departure from its board. They argue that Musk was also always aware of plans to create a for-profit structure and that OpenAI's non-profit still oversees the for-profit business. Altman's testimony is one of the marquee moments of the three-week long trial, which has featured some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, including Musk and Microsoft's CEO. The outcome of the case is hugely important for OpenAI, which is seeking to go public at around a $1tn valuation later this year. In the bitter feud between Musk and Altman, the reputational stakes are winner-takes-all. When Altman took the stand just before 9am local time in the Oakland, California federal courthouse, he began by recapping some of his career in tech before addressing some of Musk's allegations directly. "You, as you know, have been accused of stealing a charity," OpenAI's lawyer asked Altman. "What is your response to that? "It feels difficult to even wrap my head around that framing," Altman responded. "We created the largest or one of the largest charities in the world." "What would you say to the suggestion that OpenAI was Mr Musk's startup?" OpenAI's lawyer asked. "I would not agree with that characterization at all," Altman replied. Altman claimed in his testimony that in 2017 there were discussions at OpenAI of creating a for-profit structure but that they fell through due to disagreements over its ownership. Musk wanted to be CEO of the organization, Altman said. The CEO also alleged that when Musk was asked what would happen to control of the company in the future if he died, the centibillionaire suggested that it could go to his children. "Mr Musk felt very strongly that if we were going to form a for-profit, he needed total control over it initially," Altman said, adding that Musk's request made him "extremely uncomfortable". Altman's testimony framed Musk as an erratic, sometimes vindictive leader while at OpenAI. He claimed that Musk had "demotivated some of our key researchers" through aggressive demands and management techniques such as ranking employees. Altman also claimed that Musk was later offered a chance to invest in OpenAI's for-profit entity, but that he turned down the opportunity because he refused to invest in companies that he did not control on principle. Altman's character and leadership of OpenAI have been a core focus of the trial, with Musk's lawyers attempting to portray Altman as deceptive and self-serving. Several former OpenAI executives, notably those who were involved in briefly ousting Altman in 2023, have testified during the proceedings that he was untrustworthy and had a pattern of lying. Mira Murati, OpenAI's former chief technical officer, accused him of "creating chaos". Musk's attorney, Steven Molo, began a combative cross-examination of Altman with a series of questions about whether Altman ever misled former colleagues or investors, asking him if he was a "completely trustworthy" person. "You've repeatedly been called deceptive and a liar by people with whom you've done business, right?" Molo asked. "I have heard people say that," Altman replied. Molo read out a list of statements from former OpenAI executives and other coworkers who have suggested that Altman fed them falsehoods or misrepresented himself. Molo also tried to portray Altman as the one bent on control, rather than Musk. "You had a fixation on this concept of being CEO didn't you?" Molo asked. "I don't agree with that characterization," Altman replied. The trial is the culmination of several tumultuous weeks for Altman, who in recent weeks was the target of a molotov cocktail attack at his San Francisco home and was the subject of an unflattering, widely circulated New Yorker profile, which was mentioned at the trial. Musk has also been exposed to embarrassment during the case, with details about his romantic relationship with former OpenAI board member, Shivon Zilis, becoming public and OpenAI president, Greg Brockman, describing Musk throwing a tantrum during a meeting shortly before leaving the company. The trial is set to hold its closing arguments on Thursday, followed by the nine person jury deliberating whether Altman, Brockman and OpenAI will be held liable.

Sam Altman testifies in landmark OpenAI trial, says Musk wanted control of company - SiliconANGLE

OpenAI Group PBC co-founder and Chief Executive Sam Altman faced the witness stand today in the high-stakes trial that could determine the future of the company. Elon Musk is suing the company and its leaders, alleging that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman betrayed the founding mission to serve humanity by turning a non-profit into a money-making venture. Musk wants Altman replaced as CEO, and up to $180 billion in damages to be paid to from the nonprofit arm of OpenAI to come from the for-profit arm. OpenAI has hit back, saying Musk seeks revenge in a market where he has become a competitor with his company, xAI. In his testimony today, Altman outright denied that Musk ever opposed turning OpenAI into a for-profit company. "Quite the opposite," Altman said. When asked by his lawyer if he'd stolen a charity, his reply was: "It feels difficult to even wrap my head around that framing." "An early number that Mr. Musk threw out was that he should have 90% of the equity to start," Altman went on. "It then softened, but it always was a majority." Altman claimed that Musk's argument to support his huge stake was simply that he was the "most well-known." Altman testified that he was further made "uncomfortable" when Musk told him after his death, he might pass the company onto his children. Altman also claimed Musk had done "huge damage to the culture" of the AI lab by ranking engineers and scientists. He explained, "For a research lab where people need psychological safety and long periods of time to pursue an idea, this idea that you constantly have to show your results, and if they're not good enough for a short period of time you're gonna get fired, that really didn't work for the kind of research we went on to successfully do." Altman claimed Musk resigned in 2018 because he'd lost faith that the company would ever be successful, saying in an email that it would never be "serious counterweight" to Google LLC's DeepMind AI research lab, evidence that was presented in court. When cross-examined by Musk's lawyer Steven Molo he denied he had fostered "toxic culture of lying." The accusation had come from testimony by a former OpenAI board member and several former OpenAI officials. "I believe I am an honest and trustworthy businessperson," Altman said, denying he had misled anyone in the company. In reference to being kicked off the board of OpenAI in 2023 when he was accused by board members of not consistently being "candid" with them, Altman returned that there were "misunderstandings and a breakdown of trust," but he was "not trying to deceive the board." Molo also prodded Altman about his stakes in other ventures - that he owned about a third of the nuclear-energy startup Helion Energy, Inc., worth in the region of $1.6 billion, a company that is to provide electricity in the future to power OpenAI's data centers. Molo went on, pressing Altman about a potential conflict of interest regarding his substantial investment in the social media company, Reddit, as well as other ventures that are currently being investigated by a House Oversight Committee.

Musk warns Sam Altman will be one of America's 'most hated' men as the OpenAI trial continues

Musk warned Altman would be one of America's 'most hated' men The lawsuit accuses Altman and his top lieutenant, Greg Brockman, of double-crossing Musk by straying from the San Francisco company's founding mission to be an altruistic steward of a revolutionary technology. The lawsuit alleges they shifted into a moneymaking mode behind his back. Shortly before the trial began, Musk abandoned a bid for damages for himself and instead is seeking an unspecified amount of money to be paid to fund the altruistic efforts of OpenAI's charitable arm. In a text exchange with Brockman proposing a possible settlement, Musk warned that Brockman and Altman "will be the most hated men in America" as a result of the trial. While Musk, the head of SpaceX, Tesla and a slew of other companies, was well known by the San Francisco Bay Area jury pool, fewer knew who Altman was before the start of the trial, even if they were familiar with ChatGPT. As the trial has played out in a federal courtroom in Oakland, California over the last two weeks, jurors have heard from witnesses including OpenAI ex-board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, who spoke about the decision to fire Altman in 2023 before they were themselves ousted from the board of directors when Altman returned to his role. In video testimony last week, Toner said a starting point for the decision to oust Altman was when OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, a respected AI scientist, reached out to confide some of his own concerns. "A phrase we used was 'a pattern of behavior,' so no one single cause," Toner said. "The pattern of behavior related to his honesty and candor, his resistance of board oversight." Sutskever was instrumental in the unsuccessful attempt to oust Altman but later said he regretted his role in the shakeup. In his own testimony Monday, Sutskever confirmed that he wrote a 2023 memo to OpenAI's board that characterized Altman as pitting his executives against one another and exhibiting a "consistent pattern of lying" that was causing a loss of trust and productivity. Sutskever said Altman's behavior contributed to an environment that was "not conducive" to the company's goals, including its mission to safely build artificial general intelligence. He said he later backtracked and supported Altman's reinstatement because he was concerned about what would happen to a company he worked hard to create and "cared very much about." "I felt that, had I not done this, the company would have been destroyed, and I felt that this was a Hail Mary," he testified. OpenAI begins presenting its side The trial has carried risks also for Musk, who is pursuing an initial public offering this summer for his rocket ship maker, SpaceX, which could make him the world's first trillionaire. Among the witnesses has been Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member who served as a conduit between Musk and OpenAI's leaders and also didn't disclose that Musk was the father of her two young twins, according to trial testimony. Not until midday Monday, on the third week of the trial, did OpenAI begin calling its own witnesses, starting with Bret Taylor, the current chair of OpenAI's board who painted a more positive portrait of Altman's leadership. "I think Sam has done a great job as CEO," Taylor said. "He's been forthright with me and the other board members." Syracuse University professor Shubha Ghosh, an expert in business and technology law, said regardless of the outcome of the case, he has doubts about Altman staying on as CEO of OpenAI in the long run. "A lot this of might depend upon a testimony," he said. "And I don't know what he's going to say or how he's gonna say it. But even like the best case, movie theater type performance, with all the music playing and the angels descending or whatnot, I don't see him coming off as a fairly strong leader, especially (since) this case has gone this far." -- Barbara Ortutay and Matt O'Brien, AP Technology Writers

Sam Altman to testify at California tech titan trial

Oakland (United States) (AFP) - OpenAI founder Sam Altman was expected to take the stand Tuesday in the blockbuster civil trial in California triggered by a lawsuit from the world's richest man Elon Musk against the AI behemoth. Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, alleges that Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman misappropriated his $38 million donations when OpenAI abandoned its original nonprofit and philanthropic mission to become the for-profit giant behind ChatGPT. Musk is calling for OpenAI to revert to nonprofit status -- a move that would impact its position in the global artificial intelligence race against Anthropic, Google and China's Deepseek. OpenAI counters that Musk, who is now also an AI player with xAI, is motivated by petty revenge, having failed to seize majority control. The courtroom standoff in Oakland, outside San Francisco, features some of the wealthiest people on the planet, representing tech companies at the leading edge of the AI revolution. On Monday it was Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella who testified, saying he was "very proud" of his company's profitable early investment in OpenAI. Nadella told the jury that Microsoft's investment in the nonprofit arm, which now owns around a quarter of OpenAI Group PBC -- the firm behind ChatGPT -- helped to create "one of the largest, most well-funded nonprofits in the world." An advisory jury is expected to reach a verdict on any actual wrongdoing by the week of May 18. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will then make the final ruling on both liability and remedies after hearing the jury's opinion. She has indicated she will likely follow their advice. Good faith bet? Musk has alleged that internal Microsoft documents show the computer behemoth already had its eye on profit when it invested in the OpenAI start-up, rather than seeking to nurture a supposedly philanthropic AI service. Microsoft's initial $13 billion investment ballooned to be worth $92 billion four years later. But Nadella said Microsoft -- whose OpenAI stake is not estimated to be worth $135 billion -- simply made a good faith bet. "It has worked out well because we took the risk," said Nadella. "If the pie became larger, obviously the nonprofit would benefit as well with their mission -- and that's what in fact it's proven," he said. Musk's lawyers suggested Microsoft was instrumental in OpenAI's pivot toward being a commercial company, citing Nadella's 2023 boast: "We have the people, we have the compute, we have the data, we have everything." That year, when several members of OpenAI's board ousted Altman, Nadella came to his support. After a five-day crisis, Altman was ultimately reinstated at OpenAI.

OpenAI's Sam Altman takes the stand to defend against Elon Musk allegations

OAKLAND, Calif. -- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the witness stand Tuesday in a trial that pits him against Elon Musk over the future of the organization they cofounded more than a decade ago. Altman and Musk created OpenAI together as a nonprofit research center in 2015 and years later had a falling out over control and the creation of a for-profit arm that's behind ChatGPT. Altman told the jury that he did not understand Musk's allegation that he and other OpenAI executives were stealing from a charity. "It feels difficult to even wrap my head around that framing," he testified. He acknowledged that the OpenAI board had used "creative ways to keep it going," by taking outside investment and creating the for-profit arm, but he said the result has been "one of the largest charities in the world." Altman, a 41-year-old St. Louis native and Stanford dropout, is a longtime tech investor who led YCombinator, a startup incubator, before becoming OpenAI CEO in 2019. He burst onto the national business spotlight after the release of ChatGPT in 2022, signaling a new boom era for artificial intelligence. Altman began testifying on the ninth day of the billionaire-filled trial. The jury is scheduled to hear closing statements Thursday. Musk sued Altman and a third cofounder, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, in 2024, alleging that they are enriching themselves at the expense of what he says was supposed to be a charity. Altman and Brockman have countered that the lawsuit is harassment of a competitor after Musk created his own artificial intelligence startup, xAI, in 2023. They say OpenAI is still controlled by a nonprofit foundation board and that Musk agreed with them about the need to establish a for-profit arm to raise money from outside investors. Altman could only watch from the courtroom audience for the first two weeks of the trial as Musk, the plaintiff, put on his case.

OpenAI Jury to Decide: Do You Trust Elon Musk or Sam Altman?

Over three weeks of testimony, Elon Musk's legal team has tried hammering home one fundamental point to the jury: You cannot trust Sam Altman. On Tuesday, Musk attorney Steven Molo asked Altman directly if he is "completely trustworthy," to which the OpenAI CEO responded, "I believe so." During Thursday's closing arguments, Molo said that five witnesses who worked with Altman called him a "liar," according to the Associated Press, and that his "credibility is directly at issue in this case." He added, "The defendants absolutely need you to believe Sam Altman. If you cannot trust him, if you don't believe him, they cannot win." Trials are all about challenging the accounts of witnesses and sowing doubt in the minds of jurors about the other side's version of events. But Molo went beyond bluntly questioning Altman's character on Thursday and veered into vivid, metaphorical territory. "Imagine that you're on a hike, and you come upon one of those wooden bridges that you see on a trail, and it's over a gorge," Molo said, per the New York Times. "There's a river that's 100 feet below and it looks a little scary, but a woman standing by the entry to the bridge says, 'Don't worry, the bridge is built on Sam Altman's version of the truth.' Would you walk across that bridge? I don't think many people would." As the debate about Altman's truthfulness plays out in an Oakland, California, courtroom, where Musk alleges that fellow OpenAI co-founders Altman and Greg Brockman deceived him in pivoting to a for-profit company, it's also raging in the press. The New Yorker, for one, spilled 16,000 words last month under the headline, "Sam Altman May Control Our Future -- Can He Be Trusted?" OpenAI's former board didn't believe so, ousting Altman in 2023 for not being "consistently candid in his communications." With the overwhelming backing of staff, Altman returned from his five-day exile -- a period known internally as "the blip" -- and continues to lead OpenAI as it prepares for an IPO later this year at a reported valuation of $850 billion to more than $1 trillion. The 2023 turmoil resurfaced at trial as Altman faces fresh scrutiny regarding his "opaque" personal investments ahead of the company IPO. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that while "OpenAI's leaders and largest investors say they support Altman, crediting him with the company's success ... some shareholders have begun to privately question whether he should lead OpenAI through the turbulence of going public." On top of the billions Musk is seeking -- to be paid to OpenAI's charitable arm -- he also wants Altman and Brockman to be removed and OpenAI forced to unwind its for-profit structure. For all the entertaining courtroom theatrics these past few weeks -- the frantic texts, the memes, the gold "jackass" trophy -- the case could have far-reaching consequences for the tech giant behind ChatGTP and shake up the global battle for AI dominance. Musk is preparing an IPO for SpaceX (which includes xAI) that could be valued at as much as $2 trillion, while Anthropic agreed to funding this week at a $900 billion valuation and expects to go public later this year. Amid this backdrop of eye-popping AI valuations and deep public anxiety, a jury of nine people will decide if Altman, Brockman, and another co-defendant, OpenAI backer Microsoft, are liable. Deliberations are scheduled to begin Monday. The jury decision is advisory, giving Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers the discretion to determine any legal remedies, including damages. One critical question jurors will tackle is whether Musk filed his lawsuit within the statute of limitations as "OpenAI has argued that Musk waited too long and cannot claim harms that occurred before August 2021," according to the AP. That's the first hurdle; if the jury decides Musk filed in the appropriate window, they will have to "decide if OpenAI had a 'charitable trust' that was broken by OpenAI and its executives" in an effort to enrich themselves. Altman doesn't directly own OpenAI shares, but Musk's lawyers argue he used his position to profit through other companies he's invested in; Brockman acknowledged having a nearly $30 billion stake, one of the trial's most notable revelations. Musk donated $38 million to help launch OpenAI in 2015, a move he said he regretted during the trial. "I gave them $38 million of essentially free funding to create what would become an $800 billion company," he said. While Musk has portrayed himself as the victim to Altman and Brockman's machinations, OpenAI's legal team has challenged the veracity of Musk's account. Attorney Sarah Eddy said in Thursday's closing arguments, "Mr. Molo says that Sam Altman can't be trusted. Mr. Musk is the one whose testimony is contradicted by every other witness." OpenAI lawyers have argued that Musk was aware of and supported OpenAI's for-profit plan, and the lawsuit boils down to "sour grapes" over the company's success after he left in 2018. OpenAI's lead lawyer, William Savitt, said on Thursday that the charity arm still exists and is worth more than $200 billion. "Mr. Musk looks at all of this and shouts: 'They stole a charity,'" he said. "That's sort of all he does: shouts." Or as Eddy put it, Musk "never cared about the nonprofit structure. What he cared about was winning."

Elon Musk's Court Battle Against OpenAI Enters Homestretch

OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman is questioned by Elon Musk's attorney Steven Molo as a screen shows an earlier video interview with him during Musk's lawsuit trial over OpenAI's for-profit conversion at a federal courthouse in Oakland, California, U.S., May 12, 2026 in a courtroom sketch. REUTERS/Vicki Behringer. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES By Kenrick Cai, Deepa Seetharaman and Jonathan Stempel OAKLAND, California, May 14 (Reuters) - A trial that may shape ⁠the ⁠future of OpenAI enters its final stages on ⁠Thursday, as lawyers for Elon Musk try to convince a jury to hold the ChatGPT maker's leaders responsible for transforming the nonprofit into a vehicle to enrich themselves. Closing arguments are scheduled in the Oakland, California, federal court in Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. Musk is suing OpenAI and Altman for breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment, accusing them of "stealing a charity" by straying from OpenAI's founding mission to build safe AI that would benefit humanity. The world's richest person said the OpenAI defendants manipulated him into ⁠giving $38 million, only to ⁠go behind his back by attaching a for-profit business to its original nonprofit, and accepting tens of billions of dollars from Microsoft and other investors to grow. OpenAI has said the organization is stronger as a for-profit entity, including the nonprofit that is now a shareholder of the corporation, and that Musk simply wanted control. Musk is seeking about $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, which would be paid to OpenAI's nonprofit to further its altruistic goals. He also wants Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman removed from their roles. Microsoft has spent more than $100 billion on its partnership with OpenAI, a Microsoft executive testified. OpenAI competes with ⁠AI companies ⁠such as Anthropic and Musk's smaller ⁠xAI, and is preparing for a possible initial public offering that could value the business at $1 trillion. Musk's xAI is now part of his space and rocket company SpaceX, which is also preparing a potential blockbuster IPO. LAWYERS TO ARGUE REMEDIES ⁠WHILE JURORS DELIBERATE U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is overseeing the case. It is unclear when the nine-person jury will begin deliberations. If there is no verdict before Monday, the judge and lawyers will return to court that day to discuss how OpenAI should be restructured and what damages should be paid if Musk wins. Gonzalez Rogers will determine remedies and will award none if Musk loses. The trial comes amid significant public concerns over AI as it penetrates society. People use AI for myriad purposes such as facial recognition, financial advice, journalism, medical diagnoses, ⁠and harmful deep-fakes. Many people express distrust of the technology and worry it could displace people from their jobs. MUSK'S AND ALTMAN'S ⁠SINCERITY WAS CHALLENGED OpenAI was founded by Altman, Musk and several others in 2015, though Musk left its board in 2018. The sincerity of Altman and Musk about their attitudes toward OpenAI and goals for the AI business has been a central issue in the trial, and neither man has emerged unscathed. OpenAI has tried to show that even Musk supported its creation of a for-profit business to raise money for computing power and fend off rivals such as Google. It has also said Musk demanded unilateral control to ensure his continued support. Musk's effort last year to buy OpenAI through an xAI-led consortium has also been a point of dispute, with OpenAI trying to show it was inconsistent with Musk's goals in his lawsuit. Musk's lawyers have tried to portray Altman and Brockman as interested in riches for themselves. They elicited testimony that Altman had a more than $2 billion stake in companies that did business with OpenAI, and ⁠Brockman's statement that his own OpenAI stake was worth nearly $30 billion. Musk's lawyers have also portrayed Altman as dishonest, including through testimony about his 2023 ouster by OpenAI's board, which challenged his candor. Altman was reinstated in less than one week. Former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever testified to having gathered evidence to show Altman's "consistent pattern of lying." Musk's lawyer also questioned whether Altman had conflicts of interest through his involvement in companies that worked with OpenAI. Altman said he has no direct equity stake in OpenAI, though he has a stake in a fund invested in the company. (Reporting by Kenrick Cai and Deepa Seetharaman in Oakland, California, and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Rod Nickel)

Microsoft boss to testify on his role in OpenAI's founding

Oakland (United States) (AFP) - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is expected to take the stand Monday in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, to explain emails that revealed how his company funded the ChatGPT creator's shift from philanthropic organization to for-profit AI giant. Nadella's testimony will precede that of OpenAI boss Sam Altman, whose questioning -- likely on Tuesday or Wednesday -- will be one of the final stages in a closely watched trial before a federal jury in Oakland, California. The trial has laid bare the internal strife within a circle of elite Silicon Valley engineers, investors and executives in the years leading up to the high-profile launch of the ChatGPT chatbot in 2022. In his lawsuit, Musk accuses OpenAI of betraying its original nonprofit mission and misappropriating his founding donations totalling $38 million to build an empire valued at over $850 billion. The Tesla and SpaceX founder is calling for OpenAI to revert to its original status as a nonprofit -- a move that would impact its position in the global artificial intelligence race against Anthropic, Google and China's Deepseek. OpenAI counters that Musk left voluntarily after failing to seize majority control and has since become the company's direct competitor through his own AI venture, xAI. An "advisory" jury is expected to reach a verdict on any actual wrongdoing by the week of May 18. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will then make the final ruling on both liability and remedies after hearing the jury's opinion. She has indicated she will likely follow their advice. If Gonzalez Rogers ultimately sides with Musk, OpenAI's initial public offering could be jeopardized. Attracting investment On Monday, Musk's lawyers are expected to try to convince the jury that Microsoft, by investing in OpenAI in 2019, knew it was helping divert a nonprofit foundation from its original purpose. He will rely on recently disclosed Microsoft emails from January 2018 to demonstrate that the tech giant only opened its checkbook once a profit appeared possible. In the emails, Nadella consulted his executives about a discount granted to OpenAI to use the computing power of Azure, Microsoft's cloud-computing platform. "Overall I can't tell what research they are doing and how if shared with us it could help us get ahead," Nadella wrote. "From what Elon is telling everyone... he feels Open AI is at verge of some big AGI (artificial general intelligence) breakthroughs." Skepticism predominated at the time, with Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott fearing OpenAI might "storm off to Amazon in a huff." In the months that followed, cash-strapped OpenAI established a for-profit subsidiary to attract investments, rather than relying solely on donations. In 2019, a year and a half after turning its back on the startup, Microsoft finally invested $1 billion. It would ultimately inject $13 billion in total, a stake now valued at $228 billion -- 17 times the initial investment. The trial has already heard gripping testimony. Last week, co-founder Greg Brockman -- whose stake in OpenAI is valued at $30 billion -- came under fire about his 2017 diary entries including one in which he appeared keen on "making money for us." Musk's lawyers seized on the entries to portray Brockman as a calculating opportunist. Brockman also told lawyers that Musk physically threatened him in 2017 after Musk was refused absolute control of OpenAI. Musk on Wednesday announced a major partnership with Anthropic, OpenAI's top rival, to allow it to use the compute capacity at SpaceX's largest data center.

A third billionaire testifies in OpenAI trial: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the witness stand Monday in a trial about control of the artificial intelligence startup OpenAI, making him the third tech billionaire to testify in the closely watched lawsuit in as many weeks. Nadella's testimony follows earlier appearances by Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and a co-founder of OpenAI, and Greg Brockman, the president and co-founder of OpenAI. A fourth billionaire, OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, is scheduled to testify later in the week. The lawsuit centers around Musk's claims that OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has strayed from its original mission as a nonprofit research center. Musk alleges that Altman and Brockman are enriching themselves at the expense of what he says was supposed to remain a charity. Altman and Brockman say that OpenAI is still controlled by a nonprofit foundation, despite having a for-profit arm with outside investors. They say Musk is now harassing them as competitors via the suit after he started his own AI company, xAI, now part of SpaceX. They also say Musk agreed with them about the need to start a for-profit arm but wanted to be the one to control it. Microsoft is a co-defendant in the case through its partnership with OpenAI. Musk alleges that Microsoft was a bad influence on Altman and Brockman, encouraging them to violate their duty to OpenAI's nonprofit mission by signing lucrative deals in which OpenAI obtained cloud computing services. In response, Microsoft has said it wasn't aware of any conditions that Musk, as a donor to OpenAI, might have placed on his charitable contributions. The company says it therefore didn't intend to encourage Altman and Brockman to violate their duty. On the witness stand, Nadella testified that OpenAI retained its independence even as the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership deepened over time. "OpenAI had all the rights and resources they always had," he said. In 2019, Microsoft agreed to invest $1 billion in OpenAI's for-profit arm and provide cloud computing services in exchange for rights to a share of profits and an exclusive license to commercialize one of OpenAI's models for a year. Microsoft added another $2 billion in 2021 and another $10 billion in 2023, after OpenAI had released ChatGPT. Musk complained publicly in 2020 that OpenAI seemed to have been captured. "This does seem like the opposite of open. OpenAI is essentially captured by Microsoft," Musk wrote on Twitter, now X, in September that year. The next month, according to notes from an October 2020 meeting introduced as pre-trial evidence, Nadella discussed Musk's perspective on "closed openai" and said it was worth thinking through, after not wanting "to get caught up in something," according to notes from the October 2020 meeting introduced in the lawsuit pre-trial. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers cited the notes as one piece of "considerable evidence" for sending the accusation against Microsoft to trial. The closeness between Microsoft and OpenAI has flared up at other points. In 2023, when Altman was briefly ousted as OpenAI CEO, Nadella on a podcast emphasized how tight they had become. "We are below them, above them, around them," Nadella said on the podcast, "On with Kara Swisher." On the witness stand last week, Musk adviser and former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis quoted that podcast interview as a moment when the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership had given her pause. Nadella testified Monday that his statement on the podcast was in the context of Microsoft customers fearing that OpenAI might disappear during the November 2023 crisis at the company. "It goes back to me trying to communicate to customers that they can rely on Microsoft," he said. "It had nothing to do with control." Musk sued in 2024, saying his past donations to OpenAI totaling $38 million gave him a special interest in seeing that it remained a nonprofit research center. He had also founded xAI a year earlier. Nadella became Microsoft's CEO in 2014, succeeding Steve Ballmer. He has a net worth of $1.3 billion, according to Forbes magazine. Evidence in the trial is scheduled to wrap up Wednesday, with closing statements to the nine-member jury expected Thursday.

Elon Musk, Sam Altman under attack as OpenAI trial nears end

Elon Musk's lawyer attacked OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's credibility during closing arguments, accusing the company of enriching itself and straying from its founding mission. OpenAI's defence countered that Musk sought unilateral control and waited too long to sue, highlighting the need for for-profit funding. A lawyer for Elon Musk hammered at the credibility of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Thursday, near the end of a trial over whether to hold the ChatGPT maker and its leaders responsible for transforming the nonprofit into a vehicle to enrich themselves. One of OpenAI's lawyers fought back, claiming Musk waited too long to claim OpenAI breached its founding agreement to build safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity. The claims were made during closing arguments of a trial in the Oakland, California, federal court. Musk is suing OpenAI and Altman for breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment, accusing them of "stealing a charity" by straying from OpenAI's founding mission. He said OpenAI manipulated him into giving $38 million, then went behind his back by attaching a for-profit business to its original nonprofit, and accepting tens of billions of dollars from Microsoft and other investors ⁠to grow. The ⁠world's richest person is seeking about $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, which would be paid to OpenAI's nonprofit, in his August 2024 lawsuit. He also wants Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman removed from their roles. OpenAI has said the organization is stronger as a for-profit entity, and Musk simply wanted unilateral control in exchange for continued support. Musk lawyer faults 'arrogance' In his closing argument, Musk's lawyer Steven Molo told jurors that five witnesses, including Musk, former OpenAI board members and former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, testified that Altman was a liar. Molo also noted that during cross-examination on Tuesday, Altman did not say yes unequivocally when asked if he was completely trustworthy and did not mislead people in business. "Sam Altman's credibility is directly at issue in this case," Molo said. "If you don't believe him, they cannot win." Molo accused OpenAI of wrongfully trying to enrich investors and insiders at the nonprofit's expense, and failing to prioritize AI's safety. He also challenged Brockman's goals for the business, ⁠citing Brockman's statement that his own OpenAI stake was worth nearly $30 billion. "The arrogance, the lack of sensitivity, the failure to account for just common decency is really, really abhorrent." OpenAI lawyer says Musk wanted control Sarah Eddy, a lawyer for the OpenAI defendants, accused Musk's legal team in her closing argument of resorting to "sound bites and irrelevant false accusations" to ⁠distract from the absence of "real claims" in Musk's case. "Mr. Musk is the one whose testimony is contradicted by every other witness and by all the documents," Eddy said. Eddy said that by 2017, everyone associated with OpenAI - including Musk, who was still on its board - knew it needed more money to fulfill its mission than it could raise as a nonprofit. "Mr. Musk wanted to turn OpenAI into a for-profit company that he could control," she said. "But the other founders refused to turn the keys of AGI (artificial general intelligence) over to one person, let alone Elon Musk." She also said if Musk truly believed AI should serve humanity, he would not have pushed to fold OpenAI into his electric car company Tesla, or launched AI rival xAI in 2023 as a for-profit company. The lawsuit also accuses Microsoft, which invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019 and $10 billion in 2023, of aiding and abetting OpenAI's wrongful conduct. "Microsoft was aware of what OpenAI was doing every step of the way," Molo said. Altman and Brockman were in court for closing arguments. Musk is accompanying U.S. President Donald Trump in China. Lawyers to argue remedies while jurors deliberate The trial comes amid public concerns over AI as it penetrates society. People use AI for myriad purposes such as facial recognition, financial advice, journalism, medical diagnoses, and harmful deep-fakes. Many people express distrust of the technology and worry it could displace people from their jobs. OpenAI competes with AI companies such as ⁠Anthropic and xAI, and is preparing for a possible initial public offering that could value the business at $1 trillion. Microsoft has spent more than $100 billion on its partnership with OpenAI, a Microsoft executive testified. Musk's xAI is now part of his space and rocket company SpaceX, which is also preparing a potential blockbuster IPO. It is unclear when the nine-person jury will begin deliberations. If there is no verdict before Monday, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers and the lawyers will return to court that day to discuss how OpenAI should be restructured and what damages should be paid if Musk wins. The judge will award no remedies if Musk loses. Altman, Musk and several others founded OpenAI in 2015. Musk left the board in 2018. His effort last year to buy OpenAI through an xAI-led consortium has also been disputed at trial, with OpenAI calling it inconsistent with Musk's lawsuit. There was also testimony about Altman's brief 2023 ouster by OpenAI's board, and whether he had conflicts of interest through his involvement in companies that worked with OpenAI. Altman said he has no direct equity stake in OpenAI, though he has a stake in a fund invested in the company.

The 'Chaos' Inside OpenAI Is Spilling Out in Court

Feuds between the founders of tech companies are quite common, to the point that there is a subgenre of movie about ultra-rich nerds duking it out over the future of their firms. But few of these spats rise to the level of a $134 billion lawsuit -- the amount that Elon Musk is suing Sam Altman and Greg Brockman for what Musk considers the gross mismanagement of the company they co-founded in 2015, OpenAI. The stakes are sky-high for the ChatGPT-maker, as it battles the likes of Anthropic, Google, and Musk's own xAI for industry supremacy. If Musk is victorious, OpenAI could be forced to pay billions and revamp its corporate structure, putting Altman and Brockman's roles in jeopardy. Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella are expected to testify in the coming weeks before the jury decides on liability -- an advisory ruling that paves the way for Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to ultimately decide what, if any, damages to award. Before the trial began, it was clear that Musk, the richest man in the world, disliked Altman, who has emerged as the face of AI. (Musk claimed that Altman was engaged in a "long con" to turn OpenAI into a for-profit enterprise and that Altman had exploited Musk's early funding of the company; Altman denied such claims and said he felt bad for Musk, who is obviously not a "happy person.") But two weeks of testimony, including Musk taking the stand,, has laid bare the extent of the founders' feud -- and the chaotic inner workings of an AI giant. Below are the most jarring revelations so far from a trial that is not only airing out grievances among tech moguls, but which could potentially reshape AI industry power for years to come. . Musk said he was a 'fool' to fund OpenAI Musk claims to have invested $38 million in the AI company, from December 2015 through May 2017, under the impression that it would remain a non-profit. "If you go nonprofit, you've got a sort of moral high ground," he said, bluntly, in his testimony. Musk later grew skeptical of Altman's leadership at OpenAI, leaving in 2018 as the company began pursuing a for-profit structure. Around the time of ChatGPT's debut in 2022, Musk testified, he came to believe "these guys are betraying their promise." The lawsuit itself is to recoup what he sees as the share of the profits from the company's pivot to a for-profit company. "I would have sued sooner if I thought the charity had been stolen sooner," he testified. OpenAI's attorneys claim that Musk knew all along about the pivot and that the lawsuit is baseless. . An OpenAI executive thought Musk 'was going to hit me' Brockman, OpenAI's president, testified that Musk threatened him in 2017, when he was trying to pursue total control of the company shortly before his departure. "I actually thought he was going to hit me," Brockman said. It wouldn't be the only time in Musk's career that tensions spilled over into a workplace scuffle. Last year, just as he was wrapping up the DOGE mission at the White House, Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly got in a fight just before Musk was seen with a black eye at a press conference with the president. . Musk fears a 'Terminator' outcome from AI The richest man in the world has previously warned there's a roughly 20 percent chance that AI could destroy humanity. In his testimony, Musk reiterated that fear , saying that AI "could kill us all." He said that he wanted a scenario more like Star Trek, in which AI benefits humanity, and "not so much a James Cameron movie like [The] Terminator." In the jury trial, Musk has an incentive to hype the destructive nature of AI. After these doomy comments, Judge Gonzalez Rogers warned him to tone down the case for "human extinction" and focus on details about the company. . OpenAI's executives are getting obscenely rich Altman is a billionaire from prior investments, but says he takes a $76,001 salary as OpenAI's CEO and has no equity in the company, a nod to the company's early non-profit vision and his own excitement about artificial intelligence. But other executives at the company are raking it in -- including Brockman, who testified that he has made $30 billion as OpenAI's president. Musk's attorney, Steven Molo, hammered home the point that a CEO of a company purportedly founded for altruistic reasons is now extremely wealthy. "You just happen to be $30 billion richer?" Molo asked. "Compensation was certainly secondary to the mission," Brockman responded. . Texts reveal an Altman freakout after he was briefly fired In November 2023, OpenAI removed Altman as CEO because he was not "consistently candid in his communications," as the board put it in a blog post. Altman was devastated. And texts introduced in the trial show how he plotted to get back. Altman was texting with interim CEO Mira Murati about the board's decision and if he could find a way back in. "Can you indicate directionally good or bad," he texted her at 2 a.m. "Directionally very bad," she replied. The board wanted him gone. "They're convinced about their decision," she wrote. "For me to be fired? or some new thing?" he asked. "Yes for you to be gone," she replied. Murati told Altman that the board doesn't "care if everyone quits." It turns out she was wrong. Dozens of employees quit and hundreds more signed a letter threatening a mass resignation if the board itself did not step down. Within days, Altman was back and the majority of the board left. . Altman sowed 'chaos' among OpenAI executives Though Murati helped Altman return to the company, she also testified that he intentionally caused "chaos" among its leaders to better position himself. "My concern was about Sam saying one thing to one person and completely the opposite to another person," she said in the second week of the trial. When she fought for his return, she felt that OpenAI was "at catastrophic risk of falling apart."

Elon Musk-OpenAI Court Battle Enters Jury Phase - Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Elon Musk-OpenAI Court Battle Enters Jury Phase Over Alleged Broken Nonprofit Promises, Billions In Damages The first phase of the Elon Musk vs. OpenAI trial wrapped in federal court in Oakland, California, as both sides presented closing arguments before a jury now set to weigh claims over alleged broken nonprofit commitments and billions in damages. Jury Begins Deliberations In High-Stakes AI Dispute A nine-person advisory jury -- six women and three men -- will begin deliberations on Monday, CNBC reported. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will ultimately issue the final ruling on liability. The jury was instructed to base its decision solely on the evidence presented in court. "You must decide the case solely on the evidence before you," Rogers told jurors Thursday. Musk Alleges Broken Nonprofit Mission And Misuse Of Funds Musk sued OpenAI in 2024, alleging its leadership abandoned its nonprofit mission and improperly redirected roughly $38 million in donations for commercial purposes. He also claims insiders, including CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman, personally benefited from the shift. The tech mogul's attorney argued OpenAI failed to remain transparent about its structure and safety commitments, accusing executives of enriching themselves at Musk's expense. OpenAI Rejects Allegations, Points To Competition OpenAI's legal team denied any binding promise to Musk, arguing funds were used appropriately and that Musk's lawsuit followed his launch of competing AI firm xAI. "He never cared about the nonprofit structure... What he cared about was winning," an OpenAI attorney told jurors. Microsoft Also Named In Lawsuit Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) is also a defendant, with Musk alleging it aided OpenAI's alleged breach of charitable trust. The company denies wrongdoing. If liability is found, the case will move to a remedies phase where a judge will consider damages and possible structural changes, including Musk's request for billions in restitution. Price Action: Microsoft closed at $409.43, up 1.04% on Thursday and was trading lower in pre-market at $405.46 on Friday, down 0.97%, according to Benzinga Pro. Benzinga Edge Rankings indicate that MSFT shows a negative trend over the medium- and long-term horizons, while maintaining a positive trend in the short term. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo courtesy: Shutterstock.com Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Hidden OpenAI secrets and billion-dollar AI stakes: Is Sam Altman's Musk courtroom battle Big Tech's biggest warning yet as the CEO takes the witness stand today?

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is expected to take the witness stand today, Tuesday, May 12, in the high-profile legal battle between Elon Musk and OpenAI. The trial, now in its third week in California federal court, centers on Musk's claim that OpenAI abandoned its original nonprofit mission after he helped fund the organization with roughly $38 million in its early years. Musk argues that Altman and OpenAI transformed the company into a profit-driven AI powerhouse tied closely to Microsoft, violating the founding vision of building artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity.

Lawyers for Elon Musk, Sam Altman wind down OpenAI trial with testy parting shots

Elon Musk's lead attorney wound down the landmark trial of OpenAI on Thursday with a blistering attack -- again questioning the trustworthiness of the tech firm's CEO Sam Altman -- while a lawyer for the company insisted that Musk's central claims were baseless. In his closing arguments, Musk lawyer Steven Molo conjured a vivid scenario to try to drive home allegations that Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman betrayed the firm's founding contract by putting commercial gain over creating AI for public benefit. "Imagine that you're on a hike, and you come upon one of those wooden bridges that you see on a trail and it's over a gorge," Molo said inside an Oakland, Calif., federal courtroom. "There's a river that's 100 feet below and it looks a little scary, but a woman standing by the entry to the bridge says, 'Don't worry, the bridge is built on Sam Altman's version of the truth.' "Would you walk across that bridge? I don't think many people would," the lawyer added, drawing laughs from trial attendees. Altman looked on without emotion, sitting between Brockman and the company's "Chief Futurist" Joshua Achiam, who memorably testified Wednesday that Musk called him a "jackass" at a company-wide meeting years ago. The Tesla CEO, who left OpenAI's board in 2018, was in Beijing for President Trump's summit with his Chinese counterpart. During her closing arguments, OpenAI lawyer Sarah Eddy pushed back on Molo's attacks and asserted Musk's three days of testimony last month were "contradicted" by numerous witnesses. "All these witnesses say the same thing," Eddy said. "No one made a commitment to Mr. Musk. He does not have a charitable trust to enforce." Musk -- who donated $38 million to OpenAI years before launching his own high-profile artificial intelligence project, xAI -- is seeking about $150 billion in damages and a court order unwinding OpenAI's for-profit status. Eddy argued there were no conditions on Musk's charitable contributions in OpenAI's early years and circled back to a key episode in both the firm's history and the trial -- Altman's days-long ouster from the organization in 2023. The majority of OpenAI's employees signed a letter demanding his reinstatement at the time, Eddy said. The closing arguments capped three weeks of proceedings that captivated Silicon Valley and beyond and featured some of the biggest names in tech. Along with Altman, Brockman and Musk, the trial featured testimony from Musk advisor and romantic partner Shivon Zillis, OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Molo gave jurors a trip down memory lane, reminding them that when he asked Altman point blank if he was "completely trustworthy," the techie gave halting, seemingly unsure answers. Altman answered at the time that he "believed so," before saying he wanted to "amend" his answer to "yes." "Who answers questions that way?" Molo said Thursday. He told the jury that Altman's trustworthiness was directly tied to the case, saying, "If you cannot trust him, they cannot win." Also speaking Thursday was Microsoft's lead counsel Russell Cohen, who recapped the software giant's defense against Musk's allegations that it abetted OpenAI's betrayal of its mission. The trial took on a decidedly personal tone from the start, with Musk testifying in the first week, "This lawsuit is very simple: It is not OK to steal a charity." His social media broadsides, including calling the OpenAI CEO "Scam Altman," drew a rebuke from US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who also told Altman to curb his social media attacks. At another point in the trial, when Musk began to offer a legal opinion, Rogers interjected: "You're not a lawyer, Mr. Musk." "Well, I've technically taken law 101," the multi-billionaire jokingly replied. Altman addressed Musk's "steal a charity" line in his testimony, saying Tuesday, "It feels difficult to even wrap my head around that framing." Brockman also faced heavy scrutiny in the trial. Molo ripped him in his closing arguments, saying the computer scientist's "arrogance" and "lack of decency" are "appalling." During a potentially embarrassing moment in the trial, entries from Brockman's diary were displayed. The document showed him musing about becoming a billionaire and converting OpenAI to a for-profit entity, writing in 2017, "Financially what will take me to $1B?" "He's really not an idiot," Brockman wrote of Musk. "His story will correctly be that we weren't honest with him in the end about still wanting to do the for-profit just without him." An attorney who has represented large tech companies but is not involved in the OpenAI suit said he believes Musk strengthened his case over the course of the trial. "Musk has more of a case here than previously thought," said the expert, who attended most of the proceedings. "The first 15 minutes of Altman's cross-examination were devastating. I'm trying to think of the last time a witness, when asked if they can be trusted, had long pauses before answering." Jurors were set to begin deliberations Monday. Their verdict will technically be only advisory, though Rogers has said she is highly likely to follow it.

Musk, OpenAI lawyers begin closing arguments in landmark trial that could shape AI's future

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI began closing arguments Thursday in the landmark trial whose outcome could shape the future of artificial intelligence. Musk, the world's richest man, was a co-founder of OpenAI, which started as a nonprofit in 2015 and went on to create ChatGPT. After Musk invested $38 million in its first years, his lawsuit filed in 2024 accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his top deputy of shifting into a moneymaking mode behind his back. The trial's outcome could sway the balance of power in AI -- breakthrough technology that is increasingly feared as a threat to humanity's survival. Scrutiny of Altman's leadership comes at a crucial time for the company and its competitors, Musk's own AI firm and Anthropic, formed by a group of seven ex-OpenAI leaders. All three firms are moving toward planned initial public offerings that are expected to be among the largest ever. In addition to damages, Musk is seeking Altman's ouster from OpenAI's board. If Musk wins, it could derail OpenAI's IPO plans. One of the jury's tasks is to decide if Musk filed his lawsuit in time. Much of the testimony has centered on OpenAI's early years after its 2015 founding, but there's a relatively short timeline to allege the claims Musk is making of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment. OpenAI has argued that Musk waited too long and cannot claim harms that occurred before August 2021. The judge wrote in a court filing last month that "if the jury finds that Musk failed to file his action within the statute of limitations, it is highly likely" that she will "accept that finding and direct verdict to the defendants." If the jury decides that the lawsuit was filed in time, they then have to decide if OpenAI had a "charitable trust" and that OpenAI and its executives broke that trust. Musk's other claim means jurors must determine whether Altman, Greg Brockman -- co-founder and president -- and OpenAI unjustly enriched themselves at Musk's expense. For Microsoft, a co-defendant in the trial, the jury has to decide whether the company aided and abetted that breach. Musk's attorney, Steven Molo, told jurors Thursday morning that the Tesla CEO is "sorry he could not be here." Musk is in China with President Donald Trump and other prominent tech executives. Molo began making his case doubling down on claims of Altman's untrustworthiness, pointing to testimony from five witnesses who called the OpenAI CEO a "liar." "I confronted Sam Altman with the fact that five witnesses in this trial, all people that he's known for years and worked with, called him a liar under oath. Liar's a very powerful word in a courtroom." Those five people were Musk and another co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who was OpenAI's chief scientist, as well as OpenAI's former chief technology officer Mira Murati and two ex-board members, Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley. "Sam Altman's credibility is directly at issue in this case. He's the defendants' main witness. The defendants absolutely need you to believe Sam Altman. If you cannot trust him, if you don't believe him, they cannot win. It's that simple," he said. Because Musk, Altman and Brockman never signed an actual contract that could show they had a charitable trust that OpenAI then broke, Musk's side has made the case that jurors should consider emails and other communication between them -- along with everything from OpenAI's website to press interviews -- that constituted such a trust. "The evidence proves Elon donated those funds for a specific charitable purpose," he said, adding that this purpose was to create a nonprofit for the development of safe AI that would be open-source when applicable. In a terse exchange while jurors were out of the room, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers sharply criticized Musk's attorney for suggesting to jurors in his closing arguments that Musk wasn't seeking any money in the lawsuit. While Musk, before the trial, abandoned a bid for damages for himself, he is still seeking an unspecified amount of money to be paid to fund the altruistic efforts of OpenAI's charitable arm. Musk is seeking "billions of dollars of disgorgement," the judge said, ordering Molo to either retract his statement or "drop your claim for billions of dollars." They later agreed that the judge would correct the statement to jurors. ___

Elon Musk Lawsuit Exposes Microsoft's $92B OpenAI Profit Projection

Satya Nadella revealed in court that Microsoft expected a $92 billion return on its OpenAI investment, as Elon Musk's lawsuit exposed internal projections and growing tensions over the AI partnership. Microsoft internally expected a $92 billion return from its investment in OpenAI, CEO Satya Nadella said during the court proceedings linked to Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The remarks came during the hearings in a federal court in Oakland, California. Musk has accused OpenAI of moving away from its original nonprofit mission after building close commercial ties with Microsoft. Court documents showed made aggressive financial projections after backing OpenAI in its early years. The company first invested $1 billion in 2019 and later expanded the partnership with multi-billion-dollar commitments. Nadella defended the investment strategy in his testimony and revealed that Microsoft entered the partnership at a time when generative AI was fraught with uncertainty. "It has worked out well because we took the risk," Nadella said in court.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella defends OpenAI's for-profit status, shares past nerves over Altman ouster

OAKLAND, CALIF. -- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella defended OpenAI's pivot to for-profit status and discussed his company's hopes for a juicy return on its investment during Monday testimony in Elon Musk's suit against the AI giant. "Without a for-profit entity, it would be hard for OpenAI to pursue its mission," Nadella said in federal court in Oakland, Calif. Musk's attorney Steven Molo hit him with sharp questions throughout his testimony, which came in the third week of the trial over Musk's allegations that OpenAI betrayed its founding contract by putting commercial gain over developing AI for the benefit of humankind. As part of his suit, the Tesla titan has accused Microsoft of aiding OpenAI's alleged breach of charitable trust when it turned into a for-profit. Microsoft planning documents from 2023 shared in court Monday showed the company hoped to reap a cool $92 billion return on its initial $13 billion investment in OpenAI. The massive valuation of $852 billion the AI giant reached in March puts Microsoft's stake in the company at around $135 billion. "It's worked out very, very, very well for Microsoft, hasn't it?" Molo asked, drawing a response in the affirmative from Nadella. Monday's testimony also touched on a big theme from last week -- the controversial ouster of OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman in November 2023. He returned to the role days later. Nadella said he was concerned by the initial firing, explaining that he promised to support possible new leadership but didn't want Altman to go off and join a rival, either. "That was obviously very concerning to me," said the Microsoft maven. "Given all of that competition, I just wanted to make sure we could hang on to the band that created all this technology." The Microsoft-OpenAI partnership has seen its ups and downs, with the software giant getting a 27% ownership stake in the startup following OpenAI's restructuring last year. Nadella asserted Monday he was "very proud" that Microsoft took the risk to invest in OpenAI when "no one else was willing" to bet on it. Still, Microsoft executives including Nadella were skeptical about pumping capital into OpenAI as far back as 2018, according to emails shown in court last week. Several Microsoft execs said they had made visits to OpenAI and weren't seeing imminent breakthroughs in developing artificial general intelligence -- considered a holy grail in the AI race. OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever also testified on Monday. He said he never promised Musk -- who's seeking up to $180 billion in damages and a court order for OpenAI to unwind its for-profit status -- that the company would remain a non-profit. "The mission of OpenAI is larger than a non-profit or for-profit structure," Sutskever said. He said he recalled Musk wanted to own more than half of the for-profit entity of OpenAI. "I found it to be aggressive," Sutskever said, adding that Musk had obligations in other companies that he thought would distract him. "I found it difficult." On Altman's 2023 ouster, Sutskever said he was "not excited" about the prospect of a merger with other companies including arch-rival Anthropic in the chaotic days following Altman's firing. He acknowledged that former OpenAI board member Helen Toner expressed the view that "Allowing OpenAI to be destroyed would be consistent with its mission." In video testimony played in court last week, Toner detailed just how close the company came to a shotgun merger with Anthropic in the wake of Altman's firing. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers asked Sutskever if he could quantify the growth of OpenAI's technology during its early years. The computer scientist paused for a moment and then replied, "It's the difference between an ant and a cat," drawing laughter from the courtroom.

Elon Musk's court battle against OpenAI enters homestretch

OAKLAND, California, May 14 (Reuters) - A trial that may shape the future of OpenAI enters its final stages on Thursday, as lawyers for Elon Musk try to convince a jury to hold the ChatGPT maker's leaders responsible for transforming the nonprofit into a vehicle to enrich themselves. Closing arguments are scheduled in the Oakland, California, federal court in Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. Musk is suing OpenAI and Altman for breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment, accusing them of "stealing a charity" by straying from OpenAI's founding mission to build safe AI that would benefit humanity. The world's richest person said the OpenAI defendants manipulated him into giving $38 million, only to go behind his back by attaching a for-profit business to its original nonprofit, and accepting tens of billions of dollars from Microsoft and other investors to grow. OpenAI has said the organization is stronger as a for-profit entity, including the nonprofit that is now a shareholder of the corporation, and that Musk simply wanted control. Musk is seeking about $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, which would be paid to OpenAI's nonprofit to further its altruistic goals. He also wants Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman removed from their roles. Microsoft has spent more than $100 billion on its partnership with OpenAI, a Microsoft executive testified. OpenAI competes with AI companies such as Anthropic and Musk's smaller xAI, and is preparing for a possible initial public offering that could value the business at $1 trillion. Musk's xAI is now part of his space and rocket company SpaceX, which is also preparing a potential blockbuster IPO. LAWYERS TO ARGUE REMEDIES WHILE JURORS DELIBERATE U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is overseeing the case. It is unclear when the nine-person jury will begin deliberations. If there is no verdict before Monday, the judge and lawyers will return to court that day to discuss how OpenAI should be restructured and what damages should be paid if Musk wins. Gonzalez Rogers will determine remedies and will award none if Musk loses. The trial comes amid significant public concerns over AI as it penetrates society. People use AI for myriad purposes such as facial recognition, financial advice, journalism, medical diagnoses, and harmful deep-fakes. Many people express distrust of the technology and worry it could displace people from their jobs. MUSK'S AND ALTMAN'S SINCERITY WAS CHALLENGED OpenAI was founded by Altman, Musk and several others in 2015, though Musk left its board in 2018. The sincerity of Altman and Musk about their attitudes toward OpenAI and goals for the AI business has been a central issue in the trial, and neither man has emerged unscathed. OpenAI has tried to show that even Musk supported its creation of a for-profit business to raise money for computing power and fend off rivals such as Google. It has also said Musk demanded unilateral control to ensure his continued support. Musk's effort last year to buy OpenAI through an xAI-led consortium has also been a point of dispute, with OpenAI trying to show it was inconsistent with Musk's goals in his lawsuit. Musk's lawyers have tried to portray Altman and Brockman as interested in riches for themselves. They elicited testimony that Altman had a more than $2 billion stake in companies that did business with OpenAI, and Brockman's statement that his own OpenAI stake was worth nearly $30 billion. Musk's lawyers have also portrayed Altman as dishonest, including through testimony about his 2023 ouster by OpenAI's board, which challenged his candor. Altman was reinstated in less than one week. Former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever testified to having gathered evidence to show Altman's "consistent pattern of lying." Musk's lawyer also questioned whether Altman had conflicts of interest through his involvement in companies that worked with OpenAI. Altman said he has no direct equity stake in OpenAI, though he has a stake in a fund invested in the company. (Reporting by Kenrick Cai and Deepa Seetharaman in Oakland, California, and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Rod Nickel) By Kenrick Cai, Deepa Seetharaman and Jonathan Stempel

Sam Altman accuses Elon Musk of attempting to seize control of OpenAI

Appearing before an Oakland federal court, Sam Altman has dismissed Elon Musk's allegations that OpenAI betrayed its founding mission to serve the public interest. The OpenAI CEO instead contends that the billionaire himself sought to take control of the company for personal profit. This litigation, stemming from a lawsuit filed by Musk in August 2024, could have significant ramifications for OpenAI's future as the firm prepares for a potential IPO that could value it at up to $1 trillion. Elon Musk accuses OpenAI and Sam Altman of leveraging his $38m investment to pivot a non-profit organization into a profit-making enterprise. The Tesla and SpaceX chief is seeking approximately $150bn in damages, alongside the removal of Altman and Greg Brockman. During his testimony, Sam Altman denied any "betrayal" and maintained that Musk had never opposed the creation of a profit-making structure. He further asserted that Musk had at one point demanded a 90% stake in OpenAI, a proposal that had made him "extremely uncomfortable." The trial highlights deep-seated divisions amongst major tech figures regarding the future of artificial intelligence. OpenAI argues that Musk was fully aware of the company's restructuring plans prior to his departure from the board in 2018 and now regrets exiting the venture before its meteoric rise. Furthermore, OpenAI Chairman Bret Taylor revealed that the company received a takeover bid in February 2025 led by xAI, Elon Musk's own AI firm, a move he deemed inconsistent with the arguments presented in the lawsuit.

OpenAI chief Altman to take stand in OpenAI-Musk trial on Tuesday

May 12 (Reuters) - OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman will take the witness stand on Tuesday and Wednesday, the California court said, in a clash of tech titans over Elon Musk's lawsuit against the company. The trial, in its third week, may determine the future of OpenAI and its leadership, at a time when the company has raised hundreds of billions of dollars from large tech companies and investors, seeking to build out its computing power ahead of a potential trillion-dollar IPO. Musk's lawsuit alleges Altman and the AI startup persuaded him into giving $38 million to nonprofit OpenAI, only for the organization to abandon its charitable mission to benefit humanity and instead become a for-profit corporation. OpenAI says Musk knew about the for-profit plan but wanted control. The faceoff has generated interest throughout Silicon Valley and beyond, with testimony at times focusing on the personalities and leadership styles of the two men. Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever testified on Monday that he spent about a year gathering evidence for the ChatGPT maker's board that Altman had displayed a "consistent pattern of lying," for instance. Several other key witnesses, including current and former OpenAI executives, have testified in the trial so far, among them President Greg Brockman, former OpenAI technology chief Mira Murati and Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member who is also mother to four of Musk's children. Musk, who is seeking the removal of Altman and Brockman from their roles, has testified that OpenAI was his idea before executives looted it, saying his funding towards OpenAI was "specifically meant to be for a charity". Musk also said while he knew about early discussions on turning OpenAI into a for-profit company, he was reassured by Altman that it would remain a nonprofit. (Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru, Deepa Seetharam and Kenrick Cai in Oakland, California; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

Sam Altman says Elon Musk wanted OpenAI under family control, hurt company culture with pressure

'I don't think Mr. Musk understood how to run a good research lab,' Altman said. Sam Altman has claimed that Elon Musk wanted complete control over OpenAI and even suggested that the company could later be passed on to his children. Altman made these remarks while testifying in a California federal court as part of Musk's ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI. According to Altman, one conversation with Musk became a 'particularly hair-raising moment.' Altman told the court that OpenAI cofounders had asked Musk what would happen to the company if he gained full control and later died. Musk reportedly replied, 'I haven't thought about it a ton, but, you know, maybe it should just, the control should pass to my children.' Altman said he 'didn't feel comfortable with that.' Also read: OpenAI brings Daybreak to rival Claude Mythos: Here is what it can do The trial is focused on Musk's claims that OpenAI moved away from its original nonprofit mission. Musk argues that the startup was created to develop AI for the benefit of humanity, not for profit. Altman also accused Musk of damaging OpenAI's work culture. He said Musk pushed OpenAI leaders, including Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, to constantly rank researchers based on performance and 'take a chainsaw through a bunch.' According to Altman, this management style created pressure that did not fit the needs of an AI research lab. 'I don't think Mr. Musk understood how to run a good research lab,' Altman testified. Also red: Singer Dua Lipa sues Samsung for USD 15 mn over alleged use of her image: Here is what happened He explained that researchers need 'psychological safety' and enough time to explore ideas without fear of losing their jobs over short-term results. Altman also said Musk's exit from OpenAI boosted morale inside the company because employees realised they no longer had to 'work this way anymore.'

Satya Nadella backs OpenAI's for-profit shift, says Elon Musk never questioned Microsoft investments

Nadella also criticised the handling of Sam Altman's 2023 firing, calling the board's explanation unclear and poorly managed. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has taken his stance at the OpenAI vs Elon Musk trial. During his testimony, he publicly defended OpenAI's move to a for-profit structure while also claiming that Elon Musk never directly raised concerns about Microsoft's massive investment in the company. During testimony in a federal court in Oakland, California, Nadella reportedly stated that OpenAI would have struggled to pursue its larger AI ambitions without a commercial structure capable of attracting large-scale funding. He also mentioned that Microsoft always viewed its partnership with OpenAI as commercial from the very start and not as a charitable donation. This testimony comes as Musk continues his lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman and Microsoft, accusing the company of abandoning its original non-profit mission in favour of profit-driven growth. Musk has argued that Microsoft's multibillion-dollar backing played a major role in transforming OpenAI into a commercially dominant AI company. However, Nadella told the court that Musk never personally contacted him to object to the company's investments or raise concerns about any violations linked to OpenAI's structure. He also defended Microsoft's decision to back OpenAI early, saying the company took a major risk at a time when few others believed in the startup."Without a for-profit entity, it would be hard for OpenAI to pursue its mission," Nadella said. He also stated that he was very proud that Microsoft took the risk to invest in OpenAI when no one was willing to. Although the company and Nadealla were skeptical about pumping capital into OpenAI. Court discussions also returned to the chaotic removal of Sam Altman in 2023. Nadella described the situation as confusing, claiming that Microsoft never received a clear explanation from OpenAI's board regarding Altman's dismissal. According to reports, Nadella believed the board's reasoning lacked sufficient detail, despite Microsoft's close connection to OpenAI's future. Internal communications obtained during the trial reportedly revealed Microsoft's growing concern about becoming overly reliant on OpenAI's technology. In one exchange, Nadella compared the situation to IBM's previous relationship with Microsoft, implying that he wanted Microsoft to avoid losing long-term strategic control over AI. The hearing also featured testimony from OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who admitted that the process surrounding Altman's removal was rushed and handled poorly.