Musk Testified for 7 Hours Against OpenAI. Here Is What He Said.
Three days of testimony in Oakland federal court. Musk claims Altman and Brockman deceived him into bankrolling OpenAI.
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Elon Musk spent more than seven hours across three days testifying in Oakland federal court against his former AI partners. His central message to the jury: Sam Altman and Greg Brockman duped him into bankrolling OpenAI as a charity, then converted it into a commercial money machine.
'You can't just steal a charity,' Musk told the court, casting his lawsuit as a defense of charitable institutions everywhere. His argument: OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit to democratize AI, but Altman and Brockman illegally converted it into a for-profit vehicle for personal enrichment.
Federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez wasn't having Musk's theatrics. 'How can we get things done without you making things worse outside the courtroom?' she asked Tuesday, referencing Musk's habit of litigating via Twitter/X posts while court proceedings are active.
Musk repeated his AI doomsday warnings, claiming unchecked artificial intelligence 'could kill us all.' He argued OpenAI's pivot to for-profit status removed crucial safety constraints, making his worst-case scenarios more likely. The irony: Musk's own xAI is racing to build AGI as fast as possible.
In a damaging admission, Musk confirmed that xAI distills OpenAI's models to improve its own Grok AI system. This undercuts his argument that OpenAI represents an existential threat while suggesting his real grievance might be commercial competition, not safety concerns.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is expected to testify later this week. The company's defense strategy focuses on portraying Musk as a jilted co-founder seeking revenge after being pushed out of leadership in 2018. They argue Musk's real problem isn't OpenAI's structure but his loss of control.
The stakes are enormous. If Musk wins, he could force OpenAI back to nonprofit status, potentially destroying billions in valuation and reshaping the AI industry's structure. The case has drawn protesters against both AI development and Musk personally to the Oakland courthouse.
Three days of Musk testimony revealed more about his ego than OpenAI's governance. The world's richest man clearly still stings from being sidelined at the AI company he helped create. Whether that personal grievance constitutes legal fraud is now up to a federal jury to decide.