{"id":29077,"date":"2026-05-15T15:40:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T15:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/29077\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T15:40:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T15:40:29","slug":"the-real-losers-of-the-musk-v-altman-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/29077\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Losers of the Musk v. Altman Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorneys delivered closing arguments in the Musk v. Altman<\/a> trial on Thursday in a final attempt to convince a judge and jury that their respective clients, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, are the most well-intentioned, truth-telling stewards of OpenAI\u2019s founding nonprofit mission. A judgement could be delivered as soon as next week, ending a decade-long battle between two of the technology industry\u2019s most influential entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

But regardless of the outcome, there is a wide set of losers in this case. Based on ample amounts of evidence, it appears that the people worst off are the employees, policymakers, and members of the public who believed in the mission of a nonprofit research lab\u2014and supported OpenAI because of it. What seemed to take precedence for Musk and OpenAI\u2019s other cofounders at almost every turn was building the world\u2019s leading AI lab\u2014even if that meant creating a multibillion-dollar for-profit company in the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s hard to see how the public interest is being protected by either of these parties, and that is really what is ultimately at stake in a case about a nonprofit,\u201d says Jill Horwitz, a Northwestern University law professor with expertise in nonprofits and innovation, who listened to the closing arguments. \u201cThe public interest in the nonprofit is at risk no matter who wins.\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenAI’s stated mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits humanity, but humanity is not a party in this case. In practice, OpenAI has spent the last decade attempting to rival multitrillion-dollar companies like Google and build AGI first. Additionally, Musk and Altman have fought tooth and nail to be the ones who control OpenAI.<\/p>\n

\u201cMusk and Altman are basically locked in a race to be the first to build superintelligence, and they both rightly fear what the other will do if they win. The rest of us should fear them both,\u201d says Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher who joined in 2022 and has raised concerns over the company\u2019s safety culture<\/a>. He was part of a group of former OpenAI researchers that filed an amicus brief<\/a> in this case against OpenAI\u2019s for-profit conversion, arguing that the nonprofit structure was critical in their decision to join the company.<\/p>\n

At trial, OpenAI\u2019s nonprofit was discussed as if it were yet another corporate investor. OpenAI\u2019s lawyers argued that giving the nonprofit a $200 billion stake in the for-profit company is proof that OpenAI is fulfilling its mission. Public advocacy groups disagree that funding alone is sufficient.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am among the many people who are glad to see how many philanthropic resources the OpenAI foundation has at its disposal to do good work,\u201d says Nathan Calvin, VP of state affairs for the AI safety nonprofit Encode, which filed an amicus brief<\/a> opposing OpenAI\u2019s restructuring earlier in this case. \u201cBut it\u2019s worth remembering that the nonprofit also has a governance role, and that the mission of the nonprofit is not that of a typical foundation, it is specifically to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity. Money is important for that goal, and is useful all else equal, but it is not the goal in and of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Origin Story<\/p>\n

Evidence revealed in this case suggests Altman and Musk were in agreement about OpenAI launching as a nonprofit and operating much like a typical startup. They shared the goal of beating Google DeepMind in the race to AGI. But creating OpenAI as a nonprofit turned out to be a horribly inconvenient means to winning that race.<\/p>\n

Musk has accused<\/a> Altman, OpenAI\u2019s CEO, and Greg Brockman, its cofounder and president, of straying from the nonprofit\u2019s founding mission. He claims the founders used his $38 million investment to turn OpenAI into an $850 billion company and make several<\/a> of its cofounders billionaires<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorneys delivered closing arguments in the Musk v. Altman trial on Thursday in a final attempt to convince…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[458,566,8,13131,16060,9,122,120,7,7929,8826],"class_list":{"0":"post-29077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-elon-musk","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-model-behavior","12":"tag-musk-v-altman-trial","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-openai","15":"tag-sam-altman","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-x","18":"tag-xai"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116579350890144011","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}