The Musk v. Altman trial entered its second week with one line already defining the proceedings: “You can’t just steal a charity.” Elon Musk said it repeatedly over three days on the witness stand in Oakland, California. It is the phrase the jury carried into the weekend and the spine of his case against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman.
OpenAI’s tools are embedded in how Nigerian developers build, how students research, and how businesses automate. The outcome of this trial, which controls OpenAI, under what mission, and with what constraints, will shape what those tools look like and who can access them.
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What Musk Actually Argued on the Stand
Musk helped launch OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit. He donated roughly $38 million, a figure previously reported as approximately $40 million before leaving the board in 2018. His core claim is that Altman and Brockman turned a charitable mission into a commercial operation without authorisation. OpenAI is now valued at over $850 billion by private investors.
Musk told the jury his objection is not to the for-profit unit itself. The problem, he said, is that commercial interests consumed the charitable mission while Altman and Brockman personally benefited. “What you can’t do is have your cake and eat it too,” he said from the stand.
Musk put it bluntly: he claimed sole credit for OpenAI’s founding. “I came up with the idea and the name, recruited the key people, taught them everything I know, and provided all the initial funding.” OpenAI has called those allegations baseless.
Altman’s lawyers argue Musk was rejected for CEO with “absolute control” in 2017. They contend the for-profit pivot was a step the founders, including Musk, had already discussed.
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Cross-Examination Exposed Uncomfortable Contradictions
The more revealing moments came during cross-examination, when OpenAI lead counsel William Savitt pressed Musk on points that complicated his plaintiff narrative.
During cross-examination, Musk conceded xAI had “partly” relied on OpenAI’s technology to train its models, a technique called “distilling.” He downplayed it as “standard practice,” but the admission hands OpenAI’s team a line worth replaying. Musk valued xAI at $250 billion in the SpaceX merger documents. In the same courtroom, he described it to jurors as a minor player with little market share. The gap between those two positions is where OpenAI’s lawyers will spend time next week.
Musk also revealed he grew uncomfortable with Altman and Brockman’s behaviour as early as 2017, but did not sue until 2024. His explanation: he did not believe he had legal grounds earlier. The seven-year gap hands OpenAI’s lawyers a clean line of attack: were his concerns sincere, or did they surface once competitive interests aligned?
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has already noted that Musk’s attempts to acquire OpenAI, including a $97.4 billion offer in February 2025 that Altman immediately rejected, make his motivations harder to read clearly.
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What Week Two Needs to Answer
Musk’s family office manager, Jared Birchall, testified briefly after Musk stepped down, speaking to the specific donations made and Musk’s awareness of the acquisition bid. Altman and Brockman are expected to take the stand later in May.
The trial is split into two phases. Judge Gonzalez Rogers expects the liability phase, determining whether any wrongdoing occurred, to conclude by May 21. The jury’s finding is advisory only; the judge holds final authority.
Musk’s legal team is seeking up to $134 billion in damages, removal of Altman and Brockman, and an unwinding of OpenAI’s for-profit conversion. If granted, those remedies would restructure the AI industry, not just punish two executives.
Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, and former CTO Mira Murati are all expected to testify. The real trial begins when Altman takes the seat Musk occupied for three days.
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