Elon Musk testified Tuesday in his $134 billion civil lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Greg Brockman, kicking off a three-week trial at the federal courthouse in Oakland that could have significant consequences for the future governance of artificial intelligence. Musk filed the lawsuit in 2024, accusing Altman and Brockman of abandoning OpenAI’s founding mission as a nonprofit dedicated to the safe and open development of AI, and also named Microsoft as a defendant over its investments in the company.
“Fundamentally, I think they’re going to try to make this lawsuit very complicated, but it’s actually very simple,” Musk told the nine-person jury. “Which is that it’s not OK to steal a charity.”
Musk’s attorney Steven Molo argued in opening statements that OpenAI was created as a nonprofit for the benefit of humanity, not to generate financial enrichment, and that its deepening relationship with Microsoft effectively transformed it into a for-profit enterprise that violated commitments made to Musk and to the public. Microsoft initially invested $2 billion in OpenAI, and Molo told jurors that a subsequent expanded deal with Microsoft gave it control through licensing of much of OpenAI’s intellectual property. Musk is seeking damages and Altman’s removal from OpenAI’s board.
OpenAI’s attorney William Savitt offered a sharply different account, telling jurors the case exists because Musk did not get his way. Savitt said Musk used funding promises to pressure OpenAI’s founding members, attempted to take control of the organization and merge it with Tesla, and sought to own more than 50% of a new for-profit entity. There is no record, Savitt said, of any promise that OpenAI would remain a nonprofit in perpetuity, and he argued that what Musk ultimately cared about was not the nonprofit mission but winning the AI race against Google.
On the stand, Musk recounted OpenAI’s origins, tracing the founding impulse to a conversation with Google cofounder Larry Page, who Musk said called him a “specieist” for prioritizing human survival over that of AI. Musk said the partnership with Altman was built on a shared concern that Google and other profit-driven companies were developing AI without adequate safeguards, and that OpenAI was conceived as a counterbalance. He added that while he was not opposed to OpenAI having a for-profit arm, he expected profit to be capped and the for-profit entity to dissolve once artificial general intelligence was achieved. On the broader trajectory of AI, Musk told the court he expects it to surpass human intelligence as soon as next year.
Musk is expected to continue testifying Wednesday. Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and other figures are also scheduled to appear. Altman was notably absent from an Amazon event in San Francisco on Tuesday at which the two companies announced an expanded partnership, addressing attendees instead via prerecorded video. “My schedule got taken away from me today,” he told the audience.
