Musk tells court he launched OpenAI to guard against a 'Terminator' scenario

Elon Musk laid out his version of why he created OpenAI in detail in federal court for the first time. According to him, the project was conceived as an open, nonprofit alternative to Google that was meant to reduce the risk of dangerous AI development.

Why Musk created OpenAI

At the hearing on April 28, 2026, Musk said he had long feared a scenario in which computers become smarter than humans and slip out of control. His lawyers reminded jurors that as early as the mid-2010s he tried to discuss AI regulation with US authorities but saw no adequate response. After that, in Musk's telling, he decided to act on his own and, together with Sam Altman, launched OpenAI as a nonprofit lab that would compete with Google while putting safety ahead of the race for profit.

Musk described the early idea behind OpenAI bluntly: if the biggest players push AI forward without sufficient constraints, a counterweight that works in humanity's interest is needed. In court he tied this not only to business but also to the broader ethics of AGI development. He said the technology can bring enormous benefits, from new scientific discoveries to rising prosperity, but with poor governance it can end in catastrophe.

"We'd better end up in a Star Trek universe, not in a James Cameron movie,"

Musk said, explaining his fears about AGI.

What the parties are fighting over

The central dispute at trial is whether OpenAI turned from a structure with a public mission into an ordinary commercial company. Musk argues that he allowed a limited commercial layer only as a tool to raise money for compute, hiring and infrastructure. But in his account, after the $10 billion deal with Microsoft in 2023 the balance shifted for good: intellectual property and staff were increasingly concentrated inside the commercial arm, and the original nonprofit mission faded into the background.

• The company did not promise Musk that it would remain nonprofit forever, and did not commit to publishing all of its code.
• According to the defense, Musk knew as early as 2018 about plans to attract huge corporate investment.
• OpenAI's lawyers argue the lawsuit was filed too late, after Musk founded the rival xAI in 2023.
• According to the defendants, Musk himself promised to invest up to $1 billion but actually contributed about $38 million, while also wanting to gain control of OpenAI.

OpenAI's lawyers are trying to show jurors that Musk is not defending the company's original mission but is fighting a competitor.

An important detail of the trial is that possible monetary damages are not the only thing at stake. The court may also touch on questions of OpenAI's governance, which bears directly on its corporate structure and could complicate the company's IPO plans for 2026. For the company the risk is not just reputational but strategic: any ruling on the control model could affect future investors.

What happened in court

The atmosphere at the trial quickly went beyond an ordinary corporate dispute. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers separately responded to the parties' exchanges on social media and demanded an end to public escalation while the proceedings last. The trigger was Musk's posts and complaints from OpenAI's lawyers, who objected to a stream of posts fueling the conflict outside the courtroom. In the end, both Musk and Altman agreed to temporarily cut back their activity on the subject of the trial.

The hearing itself showed the case's political and symbolic weight. Musk was the first witness, and Altman was in the courtroom, though he left before Musk's testimony began. Meanwhile, the head of OpenAI skipped an Amazon Web Services event in San Francisco, where the company presented new initiatives in agentic AI. It shows the scale of the conflict: the dispute is not about old agreements in themselves, but about who will control one of the most influential AI companies of the decade, and on what terms.

What this means

The Musk v. Altman trial is turning into a public test of whether an AI lab's stated public mission can coexist with multibillion-dollar investment and IPO preparation. If the court seriously intervenes in OpenAI's governance model, the consequences will go far beyond the personal conflict between the two founders and will become a reference point for the whole industry of AI companies with a "mission-driven" history. For the market, it will signal where the line runs between the mission, the board of directors and investors' interests.