Elon Musk took the stand on Tuesday at a high-stakes trial over the future of OpenAI, casting his lawsuit against the ChatGPT maker as a defence of charitable giving.
The world’s richest person is suing OpenAI, its co-founder and its CEO, Sam Altman, and its president, Greg Brockman, saying they betrayed him and the public by abandoning OpenAI’s mission to be a benevolent steward of AI for humanity, and transforming the non-profit into a profit-seeking juggernaut.
“If we make it okay to loot a charity, the entire foundation of charitable giving in America will be destroyed,” Musk testified on the first day of the trial. “That’s my concern.”
Musk, who founded car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, characterised OpenAI as his brainchild as well.
“I came up with the idea, the name, recruited the key people, taught them everything I know, provided all of the initial funding,” Musk said. “It was specifically meant to be for a charity that does not benefit any individual person. I could’ve started it as a for profit and I specifically chose not to.”
Before Musk began testifying, William Savitt, a lawyer for OpenAI and Altman, told jurors during his opening statement it was Musk who saw dollar signs as he helped finance OpenAI’s early growth and pushed it to become a for-profit business, one he might eventually lead as CEO.
‘Keys to the kingdom’
Savitt said Musk wanted “the keys to the kingdom”, and sued only after he failed. In 2023, he started his own AI business, xAI, now part of SpaceX.
“What he cares about is Elon Musk being on top,” Savitt said in his opening statement. “We are here because Mr Musk didn’t get his way.”
OpenAI’s lawyer also framed OpenAI’s March 2019 creation of a for-profit entity as critical to letting it buy computing power and pay top scientists to stay competitive with Google’s DeepMind AI lab.
Read: Greg Brockman’s diary takes centre stage in Musk vs OpenAI
Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, told jurors in his opening statement it was the OpenAI defendants who were greedy for money, as OpenAI began drawing investors including Microsoft, which invested US$10-billion in January 2023. “It wasn’t a vehicle for people to get rich,” Molo said.
Musk is expected to resume his testimony on Wednesday.
Musk is seeking $150-billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, one of its largest investors, with proceeds going to OpenAI’s charitable arm.
He also wants OpenAI to revert to a non-profit, with Altman and Brockman removed as officers and Altman removed from its board. Musk’s claims include breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.
While Musk described OpenAI as a charity, the organisation called itself a non-profit AI research company in a 2015 post, “Introducing OpenAI”.
Before jurors were seated, US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers admonished Musk after OpenAI lawyers complained about his posts on X on Monday, in which he assailed Altman as “Scam Altman” and accused him of stealing a charity.
Rogers said she was loathe to issue a gag order, but urged Musk to “try to control your propensity to use social media to make things work outside the courtroom… Perhaps you’ve never done that before.”
Musk agreed to minimise his social media activity, and Altman similarly agreed. Altman and Microsoft chief Satya Nadella are also expected to testify.
Musk has said he provided about $38-million to OpenAI for its original mission, and testified he flexed his connections to provide computing capacity, personally approaching Nadella as well as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
OpenAI created its for-profit entity 13 months after Musk left its board. — Deepa Seetharaman and Kenrick Cai, (c) 2026 Reuters
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