Musk Takes Stand vs Altman in $134B OpenAI Trial

Elon Musk took the witness stand in San Francisco federal court Tuesday in a trial that could reshape the most valuable AI company in the world. The case, brought by Musk against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman, seeks up to $134 billion in damages and demands that both executives be removed from OpenAI's board.

Musk's argument, in his own words: this isn't a normal corporate dispute. "It's simply about stealing a charity," he told jurors, warning that the outcome could have "sweeping consequences" for nonprofits across the country.

The trial began Monday with opening statements and is expected to run several weeks.

Context: How a Founders' Disagreement Became a $134B Lawsuit

Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab. The original mission, as he repeatedly emphasized from the stand, was to build advanced AI safely — explicitly without a profit motive.

That structure didn't last. In 2019, OpenAI created a "capped-profit" subsidiary to raise capital, and over the following years it took roughly $13 billion in investments from Microsoft and converted to an even more conventional for-profit structure in 2024. Musk left the board in 2018 after disagreements over the company's direction.

His suit, originally filed in 2024 and amended several times, argues that Altman and Brockman defrauded him by accepting his early funding under nonprofit pretenses, then steering the assets — research, talent, and code Musk says he helped pay for — into a private company now valued in the hundreds of billions.

OpenAI's lawyers see it differently. In opening statements, OpenAI counsel William Savitt told jurors, "We are here because Mr. Musk didn't get his way with OpenAI." Savitt accused Musk of using funding promises to "bully" early OpenAI staff and of pushing to merge OpenAI with Tesla — a takeover bid the board rejected.

What Musk Said on the Stand

Musk testified for two days. He took credit for OpenAI's earliest building blocks: "I came up with the idea, the name, recruited the key people, taught them everything I know, provided all the initial funding."

The trigger for the original venture, he said, was Google. Musk recounted an argument with Google co-founder Larry Page in which Page allegedly called him a "speciesist for being pro-human." Musk said he came away convinced Google wasn't taking AI safety seriously, and that the world needed "a counterweight."

On the for-profit conversion, Musk's position was nuanced. He said he was "open" to a small for-profit subsidiary inside the nonprofit. What he won't accept, he testified, is the current structure — where the for-profit captures "the vast majority of the value" while the original charity holds little.

Musk also predicted on the stand that AI will be "smarter than any human" within a year — a claim that drew attention but isn't directly part of the legal dispute.

What Musk Wants

The remedies Musk is asking for are aggressive:

Removal of Altman and Brockman from OpenAI's board. Musk argues both executives breached their fiduciary duties to the original nonprofit and should not continue running the company.

Up to $134 billion redirected to charity. Musk wants any "wrongful gains" — the value created by OpenAI's commercial trajectory — placed back into the original nonprofit OpenAI Inc. The figure has grown as OpenAI's valuation has climbed.

Reversion to nonprofit control. Musk's suit asks the court to unwind OpenAI's restructuring and reinstate the nonprofit parent's governance authority over the for-profit operation.

Industry Impact

The stakes go beyond OpenAI. If Musk wins meaningful relief, it would create a template for unwinding nonprofit-to-for-profit conversions in AI — and possibly in biotech, where similar structures exist. It would also force OpenAI to either renegotiate or restructure relationships with Microsoft, SoftBank, and other backers whose investments assume the current corporate form.

For competitors, the trial is a free spectator sport. Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and xAI (Musk's own AI company) all benefit from any prolonged uncertainty at OpenAI. Customers signing multi-year enterprise contracts now have to weigh governance risk that didn't exist a month ago.

If OpenAI wins, the ruling could effectively bless the nonprofit-to-for-profit playbook for future AI labs, removing legal ambiguity that's chilled some restructuring plans.

What's Next

Jared Birchall — who runs Musk's family office and holds executive roles at xAI and Neuralink — is up next on the witness list. Altman and Brockman are both expected to testify in the coming weeks. Microsoft, OpenAI's largest investor, is not a defendant but is likely to feature heavily in testimony.

The trial is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. There's no jury verdict expected for several weeks, and any judgment is virtually certain to be appealed regardless of outcome.

Bottom Line

This is the highest-stakes corporate trial in tech this year. The headline number ($134B) and the celebrity witnesses (Musk, Altman, Brockman) will dominate coverage, but the substance — whether nonprofit assets can be effectively converted into private wealth in the AI era — is what will matter long after the verdict. If you're an enterprise customer, an OpenAI investor, or a competitor, watch the proceedings closely. The governance assumptions you've made about every major AI lab are about to be tested in court.