{"id":28515,"date":"2026-05-05T20:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/28515\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T20:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:30:11","slug":"openai-founder-details-partying-with-elon-musk-before-parting-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/28515\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI Founder Details Partying With Elon Musk Before Parting Ways"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the summer of 2017, Elon Musk<\/a> hosted a festive gathering for OpenAI’s cofounders at his Bay Area “haunted mansion.”<\/a> Amber Heard, his then-girlfriend, poured the whiskey as they celebrated the company’s future.<\/p>\n

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Days later, as the cofounders gathered again, Musk erupted in a bitter play for control of the company.<\/p>\n

“He stood up, and he kind of stormed around the table,” OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman told jurors on Tuesday in the ongoing federal trial pitting Musk against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In detail-rich testimony, Brockman described Jekyll and Hyde-level swings of temperament by the Tesla CEO<\/a> \u2014 from happy party host one day to tantrum-throwing control freak the next.<\/p>\n

The testimony by Brockman, a longtime Altman loyalist who is now OpenAI’s president, was not only vivid but could prove strategically helpful for Altman’s side.<\/p>\n

In taking Altman to trial,<\/a> Musk hopes to prove that Altman and Brockman deceived him into donating $38 million to OpenAI when it was a nonprofit dedicated to helping humanity, only to pivot to a for-profit for personal gain.<\/p>\n

But Brockman told jurors Tuesday that throughout 2017, Musk eagerly pursued turning the company into a for-profit. Musk felt that keeping OpenAI solely nonprofit was deterring investors, including Bill Gates, Brockman testified.<\/p>\n

“He asked Gates four times to donate, and Gates didn’t even come to the office,” Brockman told the jury.<\/p>\n

Ultimately \u2014 at that second cofounder meeting, days after the party where Heard poured the group “some very good whiskey” \u2014 Musk played his big card, cash.<\/p>\n

“It started out very pleasant,” Brockman said. “I’d like you to have this Tesla painting,” as a gesture of goodwill, Brockman recalled cofounder Ilya Sutskever telling Musk.<\/p>\n

“Then the conversation turned to equity,” Brockman said. “And something really changed. Something just shifted in him,” Brockman said of Musk.<\/p>\n

“And he was angry. He was upset.”<\/p>\n

Musk wanted to control OpenAI and to be its CEO, Brockman told the jury \u2014 something the rest of the founders objected to.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the meeting, he just sat quiet for several minutes, just thinking,” Brockman told jurors. “And he said, ‘I decline.’ He was not going to accept these terms.”<\/p>\n

Musk got up, “kind of stormed around the table,” and lunged toward him, Brockman testified. “I thought he was going to hit me,” Brockman told the jury.<\/p>\n

Instead, Musk grabbed the painting of a Tesla that was behind Brockman, he testified.<\/p>\n

Musk’s final words, painting in hand, as he “started to storm out of the room,” were these, Brockman said: “I will withhold funding until you decide what you’re going to do.”<\/p>\n

“And then he left the August 29 meeting.”<\/p>\n

Then board member Shivon Zilis<\/a> called later that night, Brockman testified, saying she had spoken with Musk and “Hey, it’s not over.”<\/p>\n

But “it is wrong to give unilateral control,” Brockman said of opposing Musk’s terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the summer of 2017, Elon Musk hosted a festive gathering for OpenAI’s cofounders at his Bay Area…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[982,18764,1079,532,8182,2517,18763,140,10991,2140,18765,14238,10990,157,15544],"class_list":{"0":"post-28515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-openai","8":"tag-altman","9":"tag-amber-heard","10":"tag-bill-gates","11":"tag-company","12":"tag-control","13":"tag-day","14":"tag-detail-rich-testimony","15":"tag-elon-musk","16":"tag-for-profit","17":"tag-greg-brockman","18":"tag-haunted-mansion","19":"tag-juror","20":"tag-jury","21":"tag-openai","22":"tag-tesla-ceo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}