UPDATE: Musk Takes Stand in OpenAI Trial, Predicts AGI Next Year

Elon Musk took the witness stand Tuesday on day two of the federal trial that will determine whether OpenAI's conversion to a for-profit business breached the foundational promises he says he was made when he funded the company in 2015. Musk's testimony, delivered over several hours in an Oakland courtroom, framed OpenAI as a charity he created to counter Google — and made the boldest public AI prediction of his career: that AI will be "smarter than any human" within the next year.

This is a follow-up to our coverage of the trial's opening day, when a nine-person jury was seated and opening arguments began.

What Happened Today

Musk was the first witness called by his own legal team. Steve Molo, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, walked Musk through the founding of OpenAI in 2015, his early funding commitments, and the discussions among the founding team about the company's nonprofit structure.

"I came up with the idea, the name, recruited the key people, taught them everything I know, provided all the initial funding," Musk testified. He told the court that he would not have contributed his time or money "if the intent of the company's founders was to make a profit," and that the conversion to a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 broke the foundational deal.

Pressed on his motivations, Musk said the original purpose of OpenAI was to act as a non-commercial check on Google's growing dominance in AI research. At the time, DeepMind had recently been acquired by Google and there was no major independent lab focused on safety-oriented AI development.

The "Smarter Than Any Human" Prediction

The most quotable moment came when Musk was asked about his views on AI capability progress. Musk said he expects AI to be "smarter than any human" as soon as next year, and that this prospect makes the question of how OpenAI is governed more urgent, not less.

That prediction is more aggressive than the timelines OpenAI itself has publicly committed to. Sam Altman has said for years that AGI is "soon" without committing to a specific year. Musk's framing — that superhuman AI is essentially imminent — was in part a legal argument: if the technology is about to be transformative, then who controls it matters more than ever, and a charity-turned-corporation cannot be trusted with that control.

Cross-examination is expected to focus on how to reconcile that prediction with Musk's own xAI roadmap, which is pursuing the same capability frontier without a nonprofit governance structure of its own.

Opening Arguments, Recapped

The trial's framing was set Monday afternoon when both sides delivered opening statements.

Steve Molo, for Musk, told the jury: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today because the defendants in this case stole a charity." Molo argued that OpenAI's leadership "enriched themselves, they made themselves more powerful, and they breached the very basic principles on which the charity was founded."

William Savitt, OpenAI's lead attorney, pushed back hard. "We are here because Mr. Musk didn't get his way at OpenAI. That's what happened. He quit, saying they would fail for sure. But my clients had the nerve to go on and succeed without him."

Microsoft is also a co-defendant in the suit, and the amended Microsoft-OpenAI partnership announced Monday morning — which removed several of the AGI-trigger provisions central to Musk's complaint — was clearly timed to defuse some of the trial's pressure points before testimony began.

What's at Stake

The damages figure attached to the case is roughly $130 billion, but the real stake is structural. If Musk prevails, OpenAI's for-profit conversion could be unwound or significantly restricted, with implications for how its more than 1,000 enterprise customers and major investors — Microsoft, SoftBank, Nvidia, Amazon — interact with the company going forward.

The case is being tried in equity rather than at law, which means the binding ruling will come from Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rather than the jury. The jury's role is advisory. Judge Gonzalez Rogers has indicated she will weigh the jury's recommendations heavily, but the final decision is hers.

A ruling is expected by mid-May.

Industry Implications

The trial's outcome matters less for the doctrinal question of charitable trust law than for what it signals about AI governance broadly. Several other AI labs — Anthropic, xAI, Mistral — were founded with hybrid structures that nominally balance commercial activity against safety mandates. A finding for Musk would put pressure on those structures to be more legally enforceable.

A finding for OpenAI would solidify the for-profit conversion model as the standard playbook for labs that started as research nonprofits and grew into commercial businesses.

Either way, the testimony itself has produced a public record of how OpenAI's founding promises were understood by the people involved — a document that will outlast any verdict.

Expert Reactions

Legal analysts on X focused on the credibility dynamics in the courtroom. Several jurors during voir dire on Monday expressed strong opinions about Musk personally, including some who said they don't like him. That makes Musk's testimony unusually high-stakes; the case in part rests on whether a skeptical jury finds his account of the 2015 founding credible.

Other commentators flagged the "smarter than any human next year" line as a calculated rhetorical move. If AI capability is about to leap, the case for tightly governed structures around it gets stronger. If it doesn't leap, Musk's prediction will define his legacy in a different way.

What's Next

Musk's testimony is expected to continue Wednesday, followed by cross-examination from OpenAI's legal team. Sam Altman is expected to take the stand later this week. The trial is scheduled to run two to three weeks, with a ruling targeted for mid-May.

Court will adjourn periodically for the judge to rule on evidentiary issues, and at least one sealed session is anticipated when board-level deliberations from 2018-2019 come up.

Bottom Line

Day two reframed the case from a structural-conversion dispute into a debate about who should control imminent transformative technology. Musk's "smarter than any human next year" testimony is the headline line — but the more important development is that the trial is now squarely on the territory of governance, not just charity law. How Judge Gonzalez Rogers handles that question in May will shape the legal architecture of AI labs for years.