Musk Tells Court Altman 'Stole' the Nonprofit OpenAI

On April 28, 2026, Elon Musk testified in federal court in Oakland in his case against OpenAI and its leadership. On the first day of hearings, he tried to present his conflict with Sam Altman not as an ordinary corporate quarrel but as a dispute over what OpenAI was meant to become: a nonprofit lab working for humanity's benefit, or a giant commercial AI business.

What the dispute is about

The case grew out of Musk's lawsuit, filed back in 2024. The billionaire argues that OpenAI abandoned its original mission of developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of people, not to enrich particular shareholders and top executives. In Musk's telling, the company he helped launch as a nonprofit gradually turned into a structure where investment, scaling and commercial returns took priority.

The lawsuit's demands now go well beyond a public spat between two well-known industry figures. Musk wants OpenAI returned to a nonprofit format and Sam Altman and Greg Brockman removed from leadership roles. He is also seeking $150 billion in compensation and wants that money, if the court awards it, to go to OpenAI's charitable arm. The case is uncomfortable for the company for another reason too: it raises the question of whether an AI lab created as a nonprofit can be repackaged painlessly into a business worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

How Musk testified

Musk began his testimony not with documents and correspondence but with a long biographical account. He recalled his life in South Africa, his move to Canada with traveler's checks for 2,500 Canadian dollars, and then walked through Zip2, PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla. The logic of this part was clear: to convince the court that he launched his key projects not for personal gain but in response to major risks to humanity, from dependence on fossil fuels to threats linked to artificial intelligence.

In court, Musk again repeated his familiar view of AI as a "double-edged sword." In his words, the technology can either sharply improve quality of life and solve a vast range of problems, or lead to catastrophic consequences. That is why, Musk says, he helped create OpenAI: as a counterweight to big tech players and as a venue where the development of powerful AI would not be subordinated to purely commercial incentives. In this framing, he presented his conflict with Altman as one between mission and profit.

"You can't steal a charity," Musk said in court.

The rhetoric then grew harsher. Musk said he came up with the very idea of OpenAI and its name, recruited key people and provided the initial funding. He stressed separately that the project was conceived from the start as a structure that should not bring profit to individuals. Meanwhile, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers asked both Musk and Altman to be more restrained on social media: OpenAI's lawyers had complained about Musk's posts on X, in which he attacked his opponent even before the hearing.

What OpenAI says

OpenAI's defense tells the story differently. According to the company's lawyers, it was Musk who at one point pushed the organization toward a more commercial model, because without one it was impossible to buy computing capacity and retain expensive researchers amid competition from Google DeepMind and other major labs. Against that background, OpenAI presents Musk's current claims not as a defense of principles but as an attempt to rewrite his own role in the company's history.

OpenAI's lawyers also told the court that Musk wanted more control over the organization and was unhappy when he did not get it. In their account, the lawsuit appeared after Musk failed to gain the influence he wanted and then launched his own AI company, xAI. For the jury, the dispute now looks like this: one side speaks of a betrayal of the original mission, the other of a struggle for power and influence at the center of the AI market.

• Musk demands that OpenAI be returned to a nonprofit model
• He wants Sam Altman and Greg Brockman removed
• The claimed compensation totals $150 billion
• Any payments, as the plaintiff envisions it, should go to OpenAI's charitable arm
• OpenAI insists the commercial restructuring was needed for computing resources and hiring researchers

What it means

This trial matters for more than the personal feud between Musk and Altman. The court is effectively testing whether an AI initiative with a public mission can become a commercial giant without destroying trust in the very idea of "safe AI for everyone." Whatever decision comes next, the dispute has already become a test for the whole industry: where the mission ends and corporate control begins.