Musk testimony dominated first week Musk v. Altman trial in Oakland
Elon Musk arrives for court at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland, California on April 30, 2026.
Benjamin Fanjoy | Getty Images
Musk v., where two important names in the technology industry faced each other in a case that could have important consequences for OpenAI. A week into the Altman trial, the plaintiff made his main message clear to the jury.
“You can’t steal a charity,” Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, said repeatedly while on the stand at the federal courthouse in Oakland, California.
Musk’s testimony was the centerpiece of the first week of the trial. Coming after two years Tesla’s and SpaceX CEO first lawsuit filed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the company’s president, Greg Brockman, claimed that they have kept their promise to keep the AI startup a nonprofit and follow its philanthropic mission.
Musk, who helped establish OpenAI as a non-profit organization in 2015, claims that approximately $38 million he donated to the project was used for unauthorized commercial purposes. OpenAI, now valued at over $850 billion by private investors, called Musk’s claims “baseless.” Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018 and founded rival xAI five years later, merging that business with SpaceX in February.
The trial began on Monday with the assembly of the nine-person jury. Lawyers for both sides presented opening statements Tuesday. The main event was Musk’s testimony, which lasted three days and ended on Thursday.
The courtroom was dark Friday, and hearings will continue next week with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, presiding over the case. Altman and Brockman are expected to testify later this month.
After Musk left OpenAI, the AI lab began moving further towards commercialization by creating a non-profit subsidiary in 2018. After the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 and the subsequent raising of $10 billion in equity capital, business began to boom. Microsoft.
Musk said he wasn’t entirely opposed to OpenAI having a for-profit unit, but said it became “the tail wagging the dog.” He repeatedly accused Altman and Brockman of enriching themselves from a charity while also taking advantage of the positive connotations that come from running a nonprofit.
“What you can’t do is have your cake and eat it too,” Musk said from the podium.
Musk said he started OpenAI to serve as a “counterweight.” GoogleHe thought there were insufficient concerns about AI safety. Musk said he discussed the issue with Google co-founder Larry Page, an old friend who calls him a “species expert because he’s pro-human.”
Musk said OpenAI wouldn’t exist without him.
“I came up with the idea and the name, hired the key people, taught them everything I knew, secured all the initial financing,” Musk said.
Musk’s xAI interests
During cross-examination, Musk repeatedly clashed with OpenAI general counsel William Savitt of Wachtell Lipton. He accused Savitt of lying and asking misleading questions “designed to deceive” him.
Savitt asked Musk about his involvement in negotiations to launch OpenAI’s for-profit arm, as well as what he knew about the nonprofit’s latest initiatives. He also asked about his own situation. Rival artificial intelligence company xAI, which Musk portrays as a very small size of OpenAI, with minimal market share, despite valuing it at $250 billion in its merger with SpaceX.
Musk explained that it is “partially” true that xAI uses some of OpenAI’s technology to train its own models; This process is known as distillation. He downplayed XAI’s reliance on OpenAI, saying: “It is standard practice to use other AIs to validate your AI.”
Musk told the jury that he became “troubled” by Altman and Brockman’s behavior around 2017, but didn’t feel he had a basis to sue until much later.
“If I thought they had stolen the charity before, I would have filed a lawsuit earlier,” Musk said.
One January applicationMusk’s lawyers said their client should receive up to $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, which were also named as defendants. Musk’s team now says the “ill-gotten gains” should be returned to the OpenAI foundation.
Musk also intends to remove Altman and Brockman from their positions and “unwind OpenAI’s for-profit transformation and restructuring.”
All of this is happening as Musk and Altman push their companies toward what could be the biggest IPOs in history. SpaceX has already filed confidentially with the SEC and is reportedly expected to launch a roadshow in mid-June for an IPO that could value the company in the trillions of dollars.
After Musk’s testimony ended on Thursday, his lawyers called Jared Birchall, who runs Musk’s family office, as the next witness.
Birchall also expressed knowledge of Musk’s specific donations to OpenAI, as well as Musk’s multibillion-dollar bid to acquire OpenAI last year. In February 2025, Musk led a group of investors in offering to buy control of OpenAI for $97.4 billion; This offer was immediately rejected by Altman.
Before hearings began Monday, Gonzalez Rogers opted to divide the case into two parts: the liability phase, to determine whether there was any wrongdoing, and the redressal phase, to decide appropriate consequences and next steps. Gonzalez Rogers expects the first one to be finalized by May 21
The jury will weigh in only during the liability phase, and its verdict will be advisory, meaning Gonzalez Rogers will make the final decision.
—CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
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