Elon Musk testifies in a case that could change the path of AI

(CNN) — Elon Musk on Tuesday testified that his lawsuit against OpenAI and its leaders goes well beyond one company and into the future of a technology that “could also kill us all.”

Musk has accused OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman deceived him and betrayed OpenAI’s original nonprofit mission. His lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California is seeking $130 billion in damages from OpenAI and wants the company to return to a nonprofit structure and remove Altman and Brockman from its board.

“I have extreme concerns over AI,” Musk, who has his own AI company, said on the stand in an Oakland, California courtroom. AI can make everyone prosperous but could also lead to dire consequences for humanity, he said.

“We don’t want to have a ‘Terminator’ outcome,” he said.

The trial threatens to derail one of the world’s largest AI companies – and one of Musk’s biggest artificial intelligence rivals – as it makes plans to go public as early as this year. OpenAI has consistently pushed back against Musk’s claims and says his suit is one based on jealousy and regret.

“We are here because Mr. Musk turned out to be very wrong about OpenAI. We’re here now because Mr. Musk now competes with OpenAI,” OpenAI’s lead attorney Bill Savitt said in his opening statement Tuesday. “Because he’s a competitor, Mr. Musk will do anything he can do to attack OpenAI.”

The jury’s verdict will advise Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers as she decides whether Musk gets his wish: reversion of OpenAI to a nonprofit structure, the removal of Altman and Brockman from OpenAI’s board, and around $130 billion in damages to go back into OpenAI’s nonprofit foundation.

Beyond the remedies Musk is demanding, the trial threatens to derail one of the world’s largest AI companies – and one of Musk’s biggest artificial intelligence rivals – as it makes plans to go public as early as this year. OpenAI has consistently pushed back against Musk’s claims and says his suit is one based on jealousy and regret.

The battle between two of the biggest AI pioneers, Musk and Altman, could shape the future of the emerging, but already wildly influential, technology. OpenAI’s IPO is expected to be a blockbuster, and the money it raises could help it dominate an industry in which it had an early lead. On the other hand, if Musk wins, his own xAI company could set back a major rival and potentially leap ahead.

The trial was already contentious even before any testimony.

Musk spent part of Monday posting on his social media platform X about his lawsuit against OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman, and Musk’s claims in the suit that the ChatGPT maker deceived him and betrayed its original mission.

“Scam Altman and Greg Stockman stole a charity. Full stop,” read one of Musk’s missives.

Rogers scolded Musk on Tuesday morning for his recent social media posts about the trial and threatened a gag order before the jury arrived in the courtroom.

Musk’s posts will “only make things worse,” she said. Musk agreed to limit his social media posts about the suit; Altman and Brockman similarly agreed.

And Musk could face other hurdles in his quest. Musk’s lawyers on Monday struck several potential jurors who harshly criticized their billionaire client, including one who referred to Musk as “greedy” and a “piece of garbage” in their pre-questionnaire form and another who said their partner’s job was “harmed” by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cost-cutting initiative that Musk lead in the Trump administration.

“The reality is that people don’t like him. Many people don’t like him. That does not mean that Americans can’t have integrity for the judicial process,” Judge Rogers told Musk’s attorneys.

Jurors expressed few opinions about Altman, who was in court for jury selection. In the end, the jurors selected were largely those who said they had a neutral opinion of Musk or of AI.

Emails, text, call logs and more

Musk cofounded and helped fund OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015, giving what he says amounted to at least $44 million in its first few years. But he split from the company in 2018 after an acrimonious power struggle. (Musk went on to later found his own AI company, xAI.)

A year after his exit, OpenAI created a for-profit subsidiary to raise more cash. In 2025, the company further evolved into a for-profit public benefit corporation, under the OpenAI foundation. Musk claims the shift betrayed OpenAI’s original nonprofit mission to develop safe, open-source AI technology for the public good – and that the company’s leaders, including Altman and Brockman, wrongfully profited from his charitable contributions, according to the lawsuit.

Microsoft, which Musk named as a co-defendant in the case, is accused of aiding and abetting OpenAI’s breach of charitable trust.

OpenAI, its executives Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, and investor Microsoft “enriched themselves, made themselves more powerful and they breached the very basic principles on which the charity was founded,” Musk’s attorney, Steven Molo, alleged in his opening statement Tuesday.

In early discussions, Musk and others talked OpenAI’s structure and whether it should be a for-profit company, Molo said. Musk stepped down from the board because he had “stuff going on in his other businesses” when OpenAI struck a deal with Microsoft that fundamentally meant OpenAI was “no longer operating for the good of humanity as a whole,” Molo added.

In a motion to dismiss before the trial began, Microsoft called Musk’s arguments “devoid of factual specificity and substantiation, repeatedly relying on unsupported ‘information and belief.”

But OpenAI says Musk himself pushed for a for-profit structure. Musk left the company because he was not able to assume total control, OpenAI said in a statement, and his suit is “motivated by jealousy, regret for walking away from OpenAI and a desire to derail a competing AI company.”

When OpenAI realized they needed more money for computer power and made plans for a for-profit subsidiary, Musk wanted to have full control, OpenAI’s lead attorney Bill Savitt said in his opening statement. When the others did not agree, Musk left the company.

“We’re here because Mr. Musk didn’t get his way at OpenAI. My clients had the nerve to go on and succeed without him. Mr. Musk may not like that, but it’s no basis for a lawsuit,” Savitt said.

Hundreds of pages of emails, texts, call logs and documents submitted as evidence will shed an inside view of the case, both before and after Musk left the company – communications that, in many instances, take a far different view in private than public social-media declarations.

In one 2023 email submitted as an exhibit, Altman tells Musk he’s his “hero” but that he’s hurt by his attacks on OpenAI.

“I hear you and it is certainly not my intention to be hurtful, for which I apologize, but the fate of civilization is at stake,” Musk said in response.

The-CNN-Wire
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