{"id":774291,"date":"2026-05-05T06:19:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T06:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/774291\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T06:19:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T06:19:17","slug":"elon-musks-lawyers-ask-openais-president-why-he-is-worth-30-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/774291\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk\u2019s Lawyers Ask OpenAI\u2019s President Why He Is Worth $30 Billion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days before the start of the blockbuster trial pitting Elon Musk against the artificial intelligence company OpenAI<\/a>, Mr. Musk sent a text message to Greg Brockman, OpenAI\u2019s president and co-founder, asking if he was interested in settling the case.<\/p>\n

When Mr. Brockman suggested that both sides drop their claims, Mr. Musk responded with a text attacking Mr. Brockman and Sam Altman, OpenAI\u2019s chief executive. \u201cBy the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be,\u201d he wrote, according to a document filed in the trial.<\/p>\n

As the trial\u2019s second week kicked off in an Oakland, Calif., federal courthouse on Monday, it was unclear if the public standing of Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman had changed at all. But Mr. Brockman spent most of the day on the witness stand defending his credibility against suggestions that his A.I. work was driven by greed.<\/p>\n

Steven Molo, Mr. Musk\u2019s lead lawyer, showed evidence that while Mr. Brockman had never invested money in OpenAI, he now owned a stake worth about $30 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you believe that OpenAI has maintained the moral high ground by allowing you to have a stake with close to $30 billion?\u201d Mr. Molo asked.<\/p>\n

The question of OpenAI\u2019s motivations for building A.I. is a centerpiece of Mr. Musk\u2019s lawsuit against the company. He claims that Mr. Altman and others breached OpenAI\u2019s founding agreement by putting commercial gain over its earlier promise to build safe A.I. for the sake of humanity.<\/p>\n

He is asking for $150 billion in damages and a court order that would remove Mr. Altman from the OpenAI board of directors. He also wants an order unraveling the for-profit company structure that the company adopted last year.<\/p>\n

Mr. Musk helped create OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015 along with Mr. Altman, Mr. Brockman and a group of A.I. researchers. They vowed to freely share its technologies with the rest of the world. But Mr. Musk left the organization less than three years later after a power struggle. He later founded his own artificial intelligence start-up, xAI.<\/p>\n

OpenAI\u2019s legal team has argued that Mr. Musk\u2019s suit amounts to \u201csour grapes<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Brockman, calmly responding to Mr. Molo\u2019s questions, said that OpenAI had not veered from its original promise and that he was not driven primarily by money. \u201cSolving for the mission has always been my primary motivation,\u201d he said, wearing a blue suit with his hair closely cropped, as always. \u201cIt remains so today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Molo showed an email that Mr. Brockman sent in 2015 to Yahoo\u2019s chief executive at the time, Marissa Mayer, as he and others were working on what would become OpenAI. In the email, Mr. Brockman said he was donating $100,000 to the new organization. But he did not end up making a donation.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you think it was morally bankrupt to say you would donate $100,000 and then not do that?\u201d Mr. Molo asked. \u201cNo,\u201d Mr. Brockman responded.<\/p>\n

As Mr. Brockman testified, Mr. Altman listened intently, sitting behind the OpenAI legal team. Just behind him, Mr. Brockman\u2019s wife, Anna Brockman, sat on the edge of her seat, looking toward the stand.<\/p>\n

Mr. Molo repeatedly quoted from a journal that Mr. Brockman kept in 2017 and 2018 as OpenAI\u2019s co-founders realized the nonprofit could not raise the enormous amounts of money it would need. They discussed whether they should attach the lab to a for-profit company.<\/p>\n

As Mr. Brockman and others started to tussle with Mr. Musk over the future of the lab, he wrote: \u201cThis is the only chance we have to get out from Elon. Is he the \u2018glorious leader\u2019 that I would pick? We truly have a chance to make this happen. Financially, what will take me to $1B?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Molo repeatedly asked Mr. Brockman if this meant he was primarily interested in financial gain. Mr. Brockman said no, adding that he was trying to decide whether to continue to build OpenAI with Mr. Musk or move it in a new direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a fork in the road,\u201d he said. \u201cDo we accept Elon\u2019s terms?\u201d<\/p>\n

Under questioning from Sarah Eddy, one of OpenAI\u2019s lawyers, Mr. Brockman said he had never misled Mr. Musk about his intentions with OpenAI. He also said that as Mr. Musk was leaving OpenAI, he told Mr. Brockman that he intended to create a new effort to build artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., essentially a machine that can do anything the human brain can do.<\/p>\n

Mr. Musk said that there had to be a serious competitor to Google in the race to A.G.I. and that OpenAI would not be able to do it. So he intended to build that competitor at Tesla, Mr. Brockman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as you know, has Tesla ever been a nonprofit?\u201d Ms. Eddy asked. \u201cNo,\u201d Mr. Brockman said. He was expected to return to the witness stand on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Before Mr. Brockman testified, the nine-member jury heard from Stuart Russell, a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in A.I. safety. Dr. Russell said dangers could emerge as commercial companies raced to build A.G.I.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhichever company develops A.G.I. first would have a significant advantage that would then increase relative to the other companies,\u201d Dr. Russell said. \u201cThat company \u2014 or a small handful of companies \u2014 may control a majority of economic activity on the planet, and governments would become subordinate to these companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Musk\u2019s case was dealt a blow on Friday when Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over the case, struck parts of the testimony of Jared Birchall, who manages Mr. Musk\u2019s family office. While being questioned by Mr. Musk\u2019s legal team on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Birchall discussed a $97.4 billion bid by Mr. Musk and others<\/a> to purchase OpenAI\u2019s assets last year.<\/p>\n

He said he was concerned that Mr. Altman was inappropriately removing value from the OpenAI nonprofit as he and others created a new for-profit company in anticipation of a public offering. He accused Mr. Altman of \u201csitting on both sides of the negotiations\u201d as those plans were made.<\/p>\n

But Judge Gonzalez Rogers ordered Mr. Birchall\u2019s discussion of the bid removed from his testimony because he did not have personal knowledge of Mr. Altman\u2019s involvement in the negotiations.<\/p>\n

Mr. Birchall acknowledged that he had arranged the $97.4 billion bid with Marc Toberoff, one of the lawyers representing Mr. Musk in his suit against OpenAI.<\/p>\n

(The New York Times has sued OpenAI<\/a> and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied the suit\u2019s claims.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two days before the start of the blockbuster trial pitting Elon Musk against the artificial intelligence company OpenAI,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":774292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,89175,738,317270,317272,245106,2538,67090,11574,317271,2539,169809,310174,59001,258073,158,184802,67,132,68,317273],"class_list":{"0":"post-774291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-altman","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-birchall","12":"tag-brockman","13":"tag-computers-and-the-internet","14":"tag-elon","15":"tag-gonzalez-rogers","16":"tag-greg","17":"tag-jared-1974","18":"tag-musk","19":"tag-openai-labs","20":"tag-samuel-h","21":"tag-space-exploration-technologies-corp","22":"tag-suits-and-litigation-civil","23":"tag-technology","24":"tag-tesla-motors-inc","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-yvonne-1965"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116520522106156631","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}