Elon Musk took the witness stand in a federal court in Oakland, California this week, describing himself as a "fool" and an "idiot" for having donated tens of millions of dollars to OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company he co-founded in 2015 with Sam Altman and others. The remarks came during tense cross-examination proceedings in a lawsuit Musk brought accusing OpenAI and its leadership of betraying the company's founding mission.
Musk alleges that he donated approximately $38 million to OpenAI on the understanding that it would remain a nonprofit focused on developing AI safely and for the benefit of humanity. He claims Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman misled him, using those nonprofit donations to build what he describes as a profit-driven commercial giant that has enriched its founders and investors. In a 2017 email shown to jurors, Musk had already expressed that he felt he had been treated dishonestly. "What they really wanted to do was create a for-profit where they had as much shareholder ownership as possible," Musk told the court. He is seeking to have OpenAI's commercial restructuring reversed and is asking that any profits he deems unlawfully obtained — which he has previously estimated at between $78 billion and $134 billion — be redirected to the nonprofit arm of the organisation.
OpenAI has offered a sharply different account. The company argues that no binding commitments were ever made about the terms of Musk's donations, and that Musk himself participated in early discussions about creating a for-profit entity. According to OpenAI, Musk sought control over that structure and, when refused, attempted to fold OpenAI into his electric car company Tesla. After both efforts failed, he resigned from OpenAI's board in early 2018 — roughly six months before the for-profit division was formally established. OpenAI has since received billions of dollars in investment, notably from Microsoft, and gained global prominence with the late 2022 launch of ChatGPT.
The company further argues that the lawsuit is motivated by competitive self-interest: Musk launched his own AI venture, xAI — developer of the ChatGPT rival Grok — in 2023, and OpenAI contends he is seeking to hamper a more successful competitor. During cross-examination, OpenAI's lawyer William Savitt pressed Musk on messages indicating he had at times been open to a for-profit model and had been kept informed of Microsoft's early investments. Musk also visibly bristled when questioned about his ties to US President Donald Trump.
The trial, which is expected to last several weeks, has drawn protests outside the courthouse, with demonstrators raising broader questions about who ultimately benefits from AI technology — a handful of wealthy technologists or society at large. After Musk's testimony concludes, witnesses are expected to include his aide Jared Birchall, Brockman, and AI safety expert Stuart Russell. The case goes to the heart of how the world's most influential AI company came to be, and who has the right to shape its future direction.