Elon Musk arrives for the trial of Musk against OpenAI held at Dellums Federal Building in Oakland on Tuesday.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
Opening statements in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI’s leaders began Tuesday in Oakland federal court, kicking off the blockbuster trial that may shape the future of artificial intelligence.
“The defendants in this case stole a charity,” Musk’s attorney Steven Molo said to a packed courtroom. Molo echoed a message by Musk posted on X on Monday that alleged the same, while using pejorative nicknames “Scam Altman” and “Greg Stockman” to refer to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman.
Molo said OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit for “the benefit of mankind as a whole” and “unconstrained by the need to generate money,” but argued that the company has become a vehicle for Altman and Brockman to benefit from.
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“They enriched themselves. They made themselves more powerful,” Molo said.
Musk is seeking to oust Altman and Brockman from OpenAI, reverse its transition into a for-profit Public Benefit Corporation that would enable it to go public, and damages upwards of $100 billion, though Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has expressed skepticism over that number. Musk said any monetary damages would fund a nonprofit OpenAI, rather than himself. Musk is alleging breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.
Boxes of materials are wheeled into the Dellums Federal Building in Oakland on Tuesday for the trial of Elon Musk against OpenAI.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
OpenAI’s lawyer William Savitt said Tuesday that Musk’s claims are without merit and that Musk is seeking to hurt a competitor as his own company SpaceX, which includes xAI, prepares to go public this year.
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“We’re here because Mr. Musk didn’t get his way. We’re here because Mr. Musk now competes with OpenAI,” Savitt said. “Musk used his funding commitment to bully other members of the OpenAI founding team.”
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Rather than Musk caring about OpenAI’s nonprofit status or open sourcing its tech, “what he cares about is Elon Musk being on top,” as well as beating Google’s DeepMind AI project, Savitt said.
Savitt said the evidence will show Musk’s “hypocrisy” and that Musk initially supported a for-profit company and a parallel nonprofit, similar to OpenAI’s current structure. Savitt cited emails that showed Musk’s efforts to make OpenAI a subsidiary of his electric carmaker Tesla. In February 2018, after being rebuffed, Musk left OpenAI’s board and sought to poach OpenAI’s best engineers for his own AI company, which would later become xAI, Savitt said.
In earlier remarks, Musk’s lawyer urged the jury to put aside personal animus for the world’s richest man, who was also in court Tuesday.
“The case isn’t about Elon Musk. It’s about the defendants,” Molo said. Some jury candidates were rejected Monday after expressing disdain for Musk.
Molo went on to trace Musk’s history of entrepreneurship, including the founding of Zip2 in 1995 and PayPal, and his later talks with Altman to set up OpenAI. He detailed billions of dollars of investment from Microsoft, a co-defendent, and the shift of employees from the nonprofit OpenAI to its for-profit subsidiary.
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Molo said Altman was caught “lying,” leading to his abrupt termination as CEO in 2023. Molo said Microsoft, “pulling the strings,” got Altman reinstated days later. Molo said Microsoft made a “mockery” of OpenAI’s original nonprofit mission to benefit humanity, referencing Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s comments to a journalist in 2023 that it was deeply embedded into OpenAI.
“We are below them, above them, around them,” Nadella said at the time.
Savitt, OpenAI’s lawyer, said Musk never expressed opposition to Microsoft’s involvement until OpenAI became extremely valuable and became a household name thanks to its ChatGPT chatbot.
“That’s when the sour grapes come in,” Savitt said.
He said that OpenAI’s nonprofit entity retains “100% control” of its for-profit company and is now one of the best-funded nonprofits in the world. Savitt added that 90% of OpenAI’s 770 employees signed a letter supporting Altman’s return after he was fired in 2023.
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Molo’s statement was interrupted repeatedly by technical audio issues in the courtroom, prompting Judge Gonzalez Rogers to appear to reference the disparity of the court’s tech with the billions of dollars funding AI.
“We are funded by the federal government,” she said.