On the witness stand in San Francisco, Elon Musk opened his testimony against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman with an origin story: born in South Africa, arrived in Canada for college with $2,500 in traveler's checks, driven throughout by one goal - saving humanity.
The framing was deliberate. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and left its board in 2018, is suing Altman and the organization for allegedly abandoning its nonprofit founding mission. The core legal claim is that OpenAI promised to build AI for the public good, then converted into a for-profit business now reportedly valued near $300 billion and seeking $40 billion in new investment. Musk's lawyers argue that's a broken contract.
The positioning is complicated by what Musk has done since leaving. He launched xAI and its chatbot Grok - a direct competitor to the company he's now suing. Altman's legal team is expected to argue the lawsuit is about market competition dressed up as principle, not genuine concern about AI safety or mission drift.
What Hangs on the Verdict
The outcome has real consequences beyond the two billionaires involved. If Musk prevails and OpenAI faces binding nonprofit constraints, it would directly affect the company behind ChatGPT - potentially limiting how it prices products, distributes profits, and develops future models. A ruling that validates OpenAI's current structure would effectively signal that AI labs can freely walk away from their founding public-interest commitments once commercial stakes get high enough.
Altman is also expected to testify. The trial is projected to run several weeks.