Musk's Trial Against OpenAI Stalls: Week One Deepens Doubts About the Lawsuit

The first week of the trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI did not go the way the billionaire would have liked. Instead of a simple story about how a nonprofit project was "stolen" from him, the courtroom heard emails, old agreements and Musk's own contradictions.

The simple version didn't hold up

In federal court in Oakland, Musk is trying to convince jurors that OpenAI, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman abandoned the original mission of the company, which was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit for the benefit of humanity. In his telling, after tens of millions of dollars in donations and personal help from Musk, the company turned into a commercial machine fueled by Microsoft's money.

He is demanding radical remedies: return OpenAI to a nonprofit format, remove Altman and Brockman from leadership, and recover 150 billion dollars, which would go to OpenAI's charitable arm.

But by the end of the first week it was clear that this moral narrative is not enough for the court. Even before the hearings began, the judge had cut some of Musk's claims, leaving the case to proceed on narrower grounds: breach of obligations to a nonprofit structure and unjust enrichment.

OpenAI's defense insists there was never a promise to remain a nonprofit forever, and that the move to a commercial model was needed to pay for computing power and keep top researchers. Against this backdrop, the dispute looks less like a black-and-white story of betrayal and more like a conflict over control, funding and the interpretation of old agreements.

What the cross-examination exposed

Musk's main problem is the documents and correspondence that complicate his own version of events. On cross-examination, OpenAI's lawyers showed that discussions of a commercial structure began long before the open conflict.

One of the most uncomfortable moments for the plaintiff came when he was asked about a term document dated August 31, 2017, concerning a shift to a commercial model under the control of a nonprofit. Musk replied that he had not read the "fine print" and had looked only at the heading. For jurors this is an important detail: if key papers were in his hands, it becomes harder to prove he was simply presented with a fait accompli.

• Musk admitted he had not read the details of the document on OpenAI's future commercial structure
• Correspondence shown in court indicates that discussions of a closed, for-profit model took place early on
• He confirmed that xAI uses OpenAI to validate its own models
• Asked about xAI's form, Musk agreed that commercial companies can also deliver public benefit

The logic of his answers dealt an additional blow to his position. Musk claims that converting a nonprofit into a commercial organization is unacceptable, yet he acknowledges the social value of commercial companies and uses a competitor's products to test his own AI system. OpenAI builds its defense on exactly this gap: in its version, the issue is not principles, but the fact that Musk did not get control of the company and is now trying to slow a competitor through the courts. In this framing, the case stops being a dispute about AI ethics and becomes a dispute about power and market position.

The judge is pushing back too

The lawsuit's weak points showed up not only in documents but in the overall dynamics of the trial. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers asked Musk and Altman not to fight on social media after posts appeared with jabs at their opponents. In court she also limited attempts by Musk's team to turn the proceedings into a broad discussion of whether AI could destroy humanity. When the plaintiff's lawyers pressed the topic of existential risks, the judge remarked that there is some irony here: Musk himself is building xAI in the same industry. That cuts at one of the central threads of his public stance: the image of a man single-handedly restraining a reckless industry.

"I did not read the fine print, only the heading."

Still, it is too early to say the case is lost for Musk. He can still appeal to OpenAI's early mission, his 38 million dollars in funding and his role in launching the company. But the first week showed something else: his story does not look simple and linear. Instead of a clear scheme of "we built charitable AI, and then we were deceived," the court saw a long and tangled evolution of OpenAI in which Musk himself did not always hold a consistent position either.

What this means

For OpenAI, the trial matters because of its future corporate structure and possible IPO. For the whole industry, it matters because of the question of whether AI organizations can be moved painlessly from nonprofit logic to commercial logic. The first week showed that loud formulas like "charity was stolen" are not enough: the outcome will be decided by emails, the wording of documents, and how convincingly each side explains its past actions.