Sam Altman and Elon Musk are facing off in a high-stakes trial that could alter the future of OpenAI and its most well-known product, ChatGPT. In 2024, Musk filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of abandoning its founding mission of developing AI to benefit humanity and shifting focus to boosting profits instead. Elon Musk took the stand on April 28th as the first witness called, portraying his interest in founding OpenAI as an effort to help save humanity across three days of testimony, before his financial manager and Neuralink CEO, Jared Birchall, took the stand.
On Tuesday, Brockman’s testimony continued, with Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member who shares four children with Musk, up next. It’s possible that audio of her testimony will not be available on the stream, with lawyers citing threats against her and her children. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is scheduled to appear on Monday, with OpenAI cofounder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever lined up to testify after that.
Musk was a cofounder of OpenAI and claims that Altman and Brockman tricked him into giving the company money, only to turn their backs on their original goal. However, OpenAI says that “This lawsuit has always been a baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor” in a bid to boost Musk’s own SpaceX / xAI / X companies that have launched Grok as a competitor to ChatGPT.
Elon Musk — plaintiff, OpenAI cofounder and now CEO of rival xAI
Steven Molo — lead counsel for plaintiff
Jared Birchall — manager of Musk’s family office
Shivon Zilis — former OpenAI board member who shares multiple children with Musk
Sam Altman — defendant, CEO of OpenAI
William Savitt — lead counsel for defendant
Greg Brockman — president of OpenAI as well as a cofounder
Ilya Sutskever — former chief scientist at OpenAI and a cofounder
Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers — aka YGR, trial judge
Here’s all the latest on the trial between Musk and Altman:
