{"id":71587,"date":"2026-05-14T21:54:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/71587\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T21:54:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:54:17","slug":"closing-arguments-begin-in-musk-openai-trial-that-could-shape-ais-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/71587\/","title":{"rendered":"Closing arguments begin in Musk-OpenAI trial that could shape AI\u2019s future"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI made their final arguments Thursday in the landmark trial<\/a> whose outcome could shape the future of artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n

Musk, the world\u2019s richest man, was a co-founder of OpenAI, which started in 2015 and went on to create ChatGPT. His lawsuit filed in 2024 accuses OpenAI CEO Sam Altman<\/a> and his top deputy of betraying a plan to keep it as a nonprofit and shifting into a moneymaking mode behind his back. <\/p>\n

The trial\u2019s outcome could sway the balance of power in AI \u2014 breakthrough technology that increasingly has raised fears about its potential impacts on the economy, society and even humanity\u2019s survival<\/a>. Scrutiny of Altman\u2019s leadership comes at a crucial time for the company and its competitors, Musk\u2019s own AI firm and Anthropic, formed by a group of seven ex-OpenAI leaders. <\/p>\n

All three firms are moving toward planned initial public offerings that are expected to be among the largest ever. Musk is seeking damages and changes to OpenAI\u2019s business structure, as well as Altman\u2019s ouster from company leadership. If Musk wins, it could derail OpenAI\u2019s IPO plans.<\/p>\n

Timing of lawsuit is key question<\/p>\n

One of the jury\u2019s tasks is to decide if Musk filed his lawsuit in time. Much of the testimony has centered on OpenAI\u2019s early years after its founding, but there\u2019s a relatively short timeline to allege the claims Musk is making of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.<\/p>\n

OpenAI has argued that Musk waited too long and cannot claim harms that occurred before August 2021.<\/p>\n

The judge wrote in a court filing last month that \u201cif the jury finds that Musk failed to file his action within the statute of limitations, it is highly likely\u201d that she will \u201caccept that finding and direct verdict to the defendants.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the jury decides the lawsuit was filed in time, it then has to decide if OpenAI had a \u201ccharitable trust\u201d that was broken by OpenAI and its executives. Musk\u2019s other claim means jurors must determine whether Altman, Greg Brockman \u2014 co-founder and president \u2014 and OpenAI unjustly enriched themselves at Musk\u2019s expense. <\/p>\n

For Microsoft, a co-defendant in the trial, the jury has to decide whether the company aided and abetted that breach. Musk invested $38 million in OpenAI during its first years, and Microsoft became OpenAI\u2019s biggest investor after Musk\u2019s departure. <\/p>\n

Musk lawyer focuses on Altman\u2019s credibility<\/p>\n

Altman and Brockman were in the courtroom Thursday, while Musk was in China<\/a> with President Donald Trump and other prominent tech executives.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s attorney, Steven Molo, told jurors the Tesla CEO was \u201csorry he could not be here.\u201d <\/p>\n

In his closing arguments, Molo doubled down on claims of Altman\u2019s untrustworthiness, pointing to testimony from witnesses who called the OpenAI CEO a \u201cliar.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI confronted Sam Altman with the fact that five witnesses in this trial, all people that he\u2019s known for years and worked with, called him a liar under oath. Liar\u2019s a very powerful word in a courtroom,\u201d Molo said.<\/p>\n

Those five people were Musk and another co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who was OpenAI\u2019s chief scientist, as well as OpenAI\u2019s former chief technology officer Mira Murati and two ex-board members, Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley.<\/p>\n

\u201cSam Altman\u2019s credibility is directly at issue in this case. He\u2019s the defendants\u2019 main witness. The defendants absolutely need you to believe Sam Altman. If you cannot trust him, if you don\u2019t believe him, they cannot win. It\u2019s that simple,\u201d Molo said. <\/p>\n

Because Musk, Altman and Brockman never signed a contract that could show they had a charitable trust that OpenAI then broke, Musk\u2019s side has made the case that jurors should consider emails and other communication between them \u2014 along with everything from OpenAI\u2019s website to press interviews \u2014 as constituting such a trust. <\/p>\n

A question of money <\/p>\n

In a terse exchange while jurors were out of the room, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers sharply criticized Musk\u2019s attorney for suggesting to jurors Thursday that Musk wasn\u2019t seeking any money in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

While Musk, before the trial, abandoned a bid for damages for himself, he is still seeking an unspecified amount of money to be paid to fund the altruistic efforts of OpenAI\u2019s charitable arm.<\/p>\n

Musk is seeking \u201cbillions of dollars of disgorgement,\u201d the judge said, ordering Molo to either retract his statement or \u201cdrop your claim for billions of dollars.\u201d They later agreed that the judge would correct the statement to jurors.<\/p>\n

OpenAI says Musk has no evidence<\/p>\n

Sarah Eddy, a lawyer for OpenAI, said it was Musk who has misrepresented details surrounding OpenAI\u2019s nonprofit founding and his subsequent falling out with the other co-founders. <\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Molo says that Sam Altman can\u2019t be trusted,\u201d she said. \u201cMr. Musk is the one whose testimony is contradicted by every other witness.\u201d <\/p>\n

As OpenAI has argued throughout the trial, Eddy said Musk knew of and supported plans to turn OpenAI into a for-profit company that would still support its mission to benefit humanity. <\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Musk, he has tried to persuade you that his years-ago donations to OpenAI came with specific strings attached, that these strings were strong enough to last forever to tie OpenAI up in knots as it tries to pursue its mission, and that these strings gave Mr. Musk perpetual rights over OpenAI,\u201d Eddy said. \u201cBut Mr. Musk has come nowhere close to making that case.\u201d<\/p>\n

She brought up testimony that Musk had discussed his children inheriting control of OpenAI.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted dominion over AGI,\u201d she said, referring to artificial general intelligence, a term for advanced AI technology that surpasses humans at many tasks. \u201cThat\u2019s why this was such a high stakes conversation. Mr. Musk wanted total control. Maybe, maybe he\u2019d give it up over time, or maybe not. But it was up to him and that was the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI made their final arguments Thursday in the landmark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[552,474,544,250,12,202,1665,13359,36682,11816,623,11508,581,41132,31808,36683,584,1340,12311,681,25477],"class_list":{"0":"post-71587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sam-altman","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-elon-musk","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-greg-brockman","16":"tag-helen-toner","17":"tag-ilya-sutskever","18":"tag-inc","19":"tag-openai-inc","20":"tag-sam-altman","21":"tag-sarah-eddy","22":"tag-steven-molo","23":"tag-tasha-mccauley","24":"tag-technology","25":"tag-tesla","26":"tag-trials","27":"tag-u-s-news","28":"tag-yvonne-gonzalez-rogers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116575159217675091","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}