Arguments begin in Elon Musk, Sam Altman trial over OpenAI

The trial is underway in California on Tuesday over OpenAI’s status as a for-profit company as Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the company faces a nine-person jury.

Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, is suing its CEO Sam Altman and president, Greg Brockman, for allegedly reversing course on keeping the company nonprofit. Musk seeks to have the company return to its nonprofit status, remove Altman and Brockman and receive $134 billion to be put back into OpenAI’s nonprofit foundation.

OpenAI is set to go public, potentially later this year.

Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, with an investment of about $44 million in its early years, he says. He left OpenAI in 2018, later creating his own AI company xAI.

A year after Musk left the company, OpenAI started a for-profit subsidiary. Last year it became a for-profit public benefit corporation.

Musk says the change is a betrayal of the company’s original mission and that Altman and Brockman have wrongfully profited from his investment.

Microsoft is a co-defendant in the case. Musk alleges that Microsoft aided and abetted OpenAI’s breach of charitable trust.

OpenAI alleged in a statement that Musk is “motivated by jealousy, regret for walking away from OpenAI and a desire to derail a competing AI company.” It also alleges that Musk once supported becoming a for-profit company and only left when he was denied total control.

Musk may testify in the case. A trove of evidence submitted in the case includes emails, texts, call logs and other documents.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California is presiding over the case.

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