The trial pitting Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, against OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman has entered its final phase, following a parade of witnesses among Dawn Liphardt Valley’s most influential figures, including Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, and co-founder Ilya Sutskever.
Musk’s Strategy: Undermining Altman’s Credibility
Elon Musk’s attorney, Steven Molo, made Sam Altman’s reliability the central axis of his case. “Five witnesses in this trial have described him as a liar under oath,” he stated, according to the Wall Street Journal. “I want you to understand: Altman’s credibility is on the line in this case. The defendants need you to believe him. If you cannot trust him, they cannot win. It’s as simple as that.”
To illustrate his point, the lawyer invoked a striking analogy reported by the New York Times: “Imagine you’re hiking and you come upon one of those wooden bridges spanning a chasm. A woman at the entrance tells you, ‘Don’t worry, this bridge rests on Sam Altman’s truth version.’ Would you cross that bridge? I don’t think many people would.”
Steven Molo also drew attention to Altman’s financial conflicts of interest, noting that Altman holds personal stakes of roughly $2 billion in companies that have deals with OpenAI, including Reddit, Helion, and the chip maker Cerebras.
He further highlighted the fortune amassed by OpenAI’s president, Greg Brockman, whose stake in the company would now be worth close to $30 billion. “You can’t have guys with $30 billion and claim they’re entitled to it. You can’t have people engaging in self-enrichment… this isn’t a nonprofit organization,” he stated, according to the Financial Times.
OpenAI’s Defense: Musk Wanted Power, Not the Mission
On the defense side, OpenAI’s lawyers painted a dramatically different portrait of the plaintiff. Sarah Eddy argued that Elon Musk never sought to defend OpenAI’s nonprofit mission but to seize control of it. “Mr. Musk tried to persuade you that his gifts years ago to OpenAI came with conditions robust enough to last forever, to bind OpenAI in its pursuit of its mission,” she said, according to the Financial Times. And when he couldn’t achieve that control, “he gathered his chips and went home declaring that OpenAI had a 0% chance of success.”
The attorney also recalled that in 2017, Musk himself proposed transforming OpenAI into a for-profit entity, offering him 50% of the company’s equity, versus 7.5% each for Altman and Brockman. “He didn’t care about the nonprofit structure,” she asserted, according to the New York Times. “What he cared about was winning.”
William Savitt, OpenAI’s lead attorney, dismissed the charge of “charity embezzlement” with a sharp retort: “Has anyone ever heard of a bank robbery where the robbers walked into the bank and walked away with $200 billion?” He also underscored that OpenAI remains what it is despite Musk’s doom-and-gloom predictions. “OpenAI is what it is today in spite of his doomsday predictions. To succeed in AI, all Mr. Musk can do is come to court.”
High Stakes for the Future of AI
The verdict’s consequences could be enormous. Elon Musk is seeking between $100 billion and $180 billion in damages (figures vary by source) and the removal of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman from OpenAI’s leadership, along with the reversal of the for-profit conversion. A ruling in Musk’s favor could jeopardize the IPO OpenAI plans to launch later this year.
The jury, comprising nine members, was set to begin deliberations on May 18. But, in keeping with the American legal system, the jury’s verdict is advisory. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will have the final word, with broad latitude to determine the sanctions, reduce them, or even disregard the verdict altogether.
Legal experts describe Elon Musk as an outsider in this proceeding, notably because establishing the existence of a formal founding contract is difficult since no contractual document was presented during the trial.
Elon Musk was absent from the courtroom on June 14, having left the United States aboard Air Force One to accompany President Trump to China.
