Elon Musk and Sam Altman sat together in 2015 to announce a new artificial intelligence research lab. They called it OpenAI and promised it would operate as a nonprofit. Today, their friendship has completely broken down. Over the past three weeks, the two tech leaders faced off in a California courtroom. Musk sued Altman and OpenAI in 2024, claiming they violated their original charitable mission.
The stakes are incredibly high. Investors currently value OpenAI at over $850 billion. Meanwhile, Musk merged his own artificial intelligence company, xAI, with SpaceX this past February. The market now values the combined SpaceX entity at $1.25 trillion. Both companies plan to sell stock to the public soon. SpaceX might release its financial documents this week before a massive stock offering next month.
Musk took the witness stand in Oakland and told the jury that OpenAI would not exist without him. He stated that he came up with the name, recruited the top engineers, and provided the early money. Musk originally promised to give the charity up to $1 billion. He ultimately donated exactly $38 million before he stopped writing checks. He accused Altman and president Greg Brockman of stealing a charity to make themselves incredibly rich.
Altman defended himself and his company during his own testimony. He told the court that the founders never made any firm promises to Musk about the corporate structure. Altman argued that the real problem involved Musk’s desire for absolute power. He testified that Musk demanded total control over the lab because he did not trust anyone else to make decisions. The founders refused to give Musk 90% ownership because they believed no single person should control artificial general intelligence.
Cracks in the relationship became obvious by 2017. Internal emails show Musk demanded that Altman list every employee’s contributions and fire anyone who fell behind. Tension grew worse when Tesla hired away Andrej Karpathy, a top researcher at OpenAI. Musk later apologized for taking the employee, but the trust between the leaders continued to fade.
As OpenAI burned through cash to buy computing power, Musk made one final attempt to seize the company. He suggested merging OpenAI directly into Tesla. Musk invited Altman to tour a Tesla factory and offered him a seat on the board. Altman rejected the deal. He testified that a car company simply did not share the same mission as an artificial intelligence lab.
Musk walked away from the board in 2018. He sent an email telling the team he would no longer fund the project unless they committed to staying a nonprofit. For the next five years, the two men mostly kept their disagreements private. Altman even praised Musk on social media, telling people that betting against the billionaire was a historical mistake.
Everything changed when OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022. The new software triggered a massive investment boom. In January 2023, Microsoft poured exactly $10 billion into OpenAI. To handle these massive computing costs, OpenAI established a for-profit business arm. Even a 1.5% increase in computing power required millions of dollars, forcing the company to find outside investors.
Musk reacted with intense anger online. He complained that OpenAI changed from an open-source charity into a closed-source company controlled by Microsoft. Altman texted Musk to say the public attacks hurt deeply, but Musk ignored the message. In March 2023, Musk launched xAI to compete directly with his former friends. He even recruited talent directly out of the OpenAI offices.
Lawyers finished their closing arguments on Thursday. The jury will start deliberating on Monday to decide if Altman and Brockman broke their promises. Legal experts say neither billionaire will win in the eyes of the public. People just see two incredibly wealthy men fighting over who gets to control a technology that will change the world.
