Musk Trial Against OpenAI and Sam Altman Begins in Federal Court

Elon Musk is seeking the removal of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman from their positions at OpenAI, the undoing of the company's for-profit restructuring and $134 billion in damages to be redistributed to its nonprofit arm in a federal trial underway in Oakland, California.

The trial began the week of April 29, 2026. Musk filed the lawsuit in 2024 accusing Altman and Brockman, his fellow co-founders, of breaking the original agreement that OpenAI would operate as a nonprofit.

Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president, testified for two days this week. He described a late August 2017 meeting at which the group discussed creating a for-profit entity to commercialize its technology and raise funds needed to pursue artificial general intelligence. Musk had given each co-founder a Tesla Model 3 beforehand.

Ilya Sutskever commissioned a painting of a Tesla as a gift for Musk. " according to Brockman's testimony. Musk stopped his regular donations to OpenAI after the meeting and left the board voluntarily in February 2018.

Brockman said his own No. 1 goal was always the "mission" of OpenAI and that it was Musk who sought unilateral control.

““Look at what we accomplished. The OpenAI nonprofit has over $150 billion of OpenAI equity value. That is something we have built through hard work, blood, sweat, and tears, all this time since Elon has left.””

“— 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.”