- During his second day of testimony in a federal court in Oakland, Elon Musk expressed regret over his early financial support for OpenAI, claiming he was misled about the company’s transition to a for-profit model.
- Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, is seeking to force the ChatGPT creator back to its original nonprofit roots and is calling for the ouster of CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman.
- OpenAI is now valued at approximately $852 billion, while Musk’s own AI venture, xAI, has been merged into SpaceX, which is preparing for a massive IPO this June.
The legal battle between the world’s richest man and the world’s most prominent AI startup reached a boiling point on Wednesday as Elon Musk took the stand to recount his version of OpenAI’s history.
Eko Hot Blog reports that Musk told the court he felt “fooled” into providing nearly $40 million in “free funding” for what he believed was an altruistic project, only to see it transform into a multi-billion dollar commercial powerhouse.
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During a rigorous cross-examination, OpenAI’s lead attorney, William Savitt, used Musk’s historical emails to challenge the narrative of betrayal.
The defense pointed out that Musk himself had once discussed various corporate structures, suggesting that the shift toward a for-profit arm was not as “blindsiding” as he now claims.
Musk countered that he only supported a for-profit entity if it remained “in service to the nonprofit.”
Musk’s departure from OpenAI in 2018 left a void that was eventually filled by massive investments from Microsoft and others, propelling the company to its current $852 billion valuation.
Musk argued that the company’s current closed-source approach, protecting its technology rather than making it freely available, violates the founding principles he signed up for to counter Google’s perceived monopoly on AI.
The presiding judge, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, is expected to rule by late May on whether OpenAI breached its contract with Musk.
Beyond the structural changes, Musk is seeking $134 billion in damages, which he has publicly pledged to return to the OpenAI nonprofit.
As the tech world watches, the verdict could redefine the boundaries between humanitarian AI research and Silicon Valley’s profit-driven race for dominance.
