OpenAI CEO Sam Altman finally walked into a courtroom this morning to face his former partner, Elon Musk. This legal battle is all about how OpenAI is built and who it really serves. Altman wasted no time defending himself against Musk’s claim that he “stole a charity” to build a massive for-profit business.
Altman admitted it was hard to even understand that way of thinking. He told the jury that OpenAI’s foundation now holds roughly $200 billion in assets. He argues that they have built one of the largest and most powerful charities in the world, and they are just getting started.
A Fight for Control
The courtroom heard a lot about the power struggle that happened years ago. Musk’s lawyers pointed out that OpenAI’s foundation did not have a single full-time employee until earlier this year. OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor explained that was because the company was busy turning its equity into cash during a massive reorganization in 2025.
The biggest question in the case is whether OpenAI dumped its focus on safety to chase profits. Altman flipped the script, claiming it was actually Musk’s own plans that worried him. He described a “hair-raising” moment from 2017 when the founders were arguing about how to fund their AI dreams. When asked what would happen if he died while controlling the company, Musk reportedly said that maybe OpenAI should simply pass to his children.
Different Ways of Working
Altman said this focus on personal control gave him pause. He believed that the future of AI shouldn’t belong to just one person. Having run the startup incubator Y Combinator, Altman noted that founders who get total control almost never give it up when things are going well.
He also took shots at Musk’s management style. He claimed Musk’s tactics, which might work for building cars or rockets, did not work at a research lab like OpenAI. Altman described a moment where Musk allegedly told top researchers to rank each other’s accomplishments so he could “take a chainsaw” through the group. Altman said this move caused long-term damage to the company’s culture and hurt morale.
Moving On
Altman praised the hard work of co-founders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, saying they were the ones actually running the show while he and Musk were busy elsewhere. After their big clash, Musk left the board in 2018 and eventually started his own rival AI company, xAI.
Even after they split, Altman tried to stay in touch. He sent updates on OpenAI’s progress and even asked Musk for advice and money. Lawyers showed that Musk was kept in the loop and was even invited to invest in the very deals he is now suing over. In one lighthearted moment, Altman recalled a 2018 meeting about Microsoft’s investment where Musk spent a long time just showing him memes on his phone.