Musk Trial Against OpenAI and Sam Altman Begins in Federal Court

“— Greg Brockman, OpenAI president Brockman's current stake in OpenAI is worth almost $30 billion. OpenAI created its for-profit entity in 2019 and raised $1 billion from Microsoft that year. It raised a further $13 billion from Microsoft over the four years that followed. Shivon Zilis, an executive at Musk's Neuralink who served on OpenAI’s board from 2020 to 2023 and is the mother of four of Musk’s children, testified on Wednesday, May 6, 2026. OpenAI has argued that while Zilis worked with the company from 2016 to 2023 she was involved in a secret relationship with Musk and acted as an informant for him. Musk paid for office space that OpenAI shared with Neuralink until 2020. Musk testified last week that artificial general intelligence is when AI becomes “as smart as any human,” that “we are getting close to that point,” and that AI will be smarter than any human as soon as next year. He said he has “extreme concerns” about AI and deliberately chose to found OpenAI as a nonprofit “for the public good.” Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers warned lawyers not to get sidetracked by questions about the dangers of AI. “This is not a trial on the safety risks of artificial intelligence. This is not a trial on whether or not AI has damaged humanity,” she stated. Stuart Russell, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, testified as an expert witness for Musk’s side at a rate of $5,000 an hour. The trial is expected to continue through the week of May 11, 2026.”