Altman Says Musk Sought Control of OpenAI in Federal Trial

Sam Altman told jurors in federal court in Oakland that Elon Musk was not just challenging OpenAI’s direction, he was trying to control it. The testimony, delivered in the third week of the trial in U.S. District Court in Oakland, California, put the fight over OpenAI’s origin story at the center of a case that could shape who governs the company next.

Musk sued in August 2024, arguing that OpenAI abandoned the nonprofit mission behind its 2015 founding and became a for-profit company. He says he was induced to donate about $38 million to help start the lab and is seeking about $150 billion in damages, along with the removal of Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman. OpenAI has countered that Musk knew about the for-profit plan before leaving its board in 2018 and only sued after missing out on the upside. The dispute now carries exceptional stakes as OpenAI weighs a possible initial public offering that could value the company at $1 trillion.

Altman’s testimony went to the heart of the case. He said Musk once demanded a 90% stake in OpenAI and argued that a merger with Tesla would have been incompatible with the company’s mission. Altman also testified that Musk’s management style demotivated some researchers and that Musk’s departure was a morale boost for part of the staff. The message was clear: the argument was not only about whether OpenAI drifted from its original purpose, but whether Musk himself sought to steer the company toward control and profit on his own terms.

The broader record has already featured other influential voices. Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella testified that Microsoft viewed OpenAI as a partner, undercutting Musk’s narrative. OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever said there had never been a promise that OpenAI would remain a nonprofit organization. OpenAI’s board also unanimously rejected Musk’s bid to acquire the company last year, reinforcing the company’s position that Musk was trying to regain leverage over an enterprise he helped launch but no longer controlled.

OpenAI was founded in 2015 by Musk, Altman, Brockman and others as a nonprofit research lab, then created a for-profit entity in March 2019 to raise outside capital for the compute-intensive race in artificial intelligence. Musk later launched xAI in 2023, sharpening the rivalry between two companies competing for talent, capital and the right to define the future of AI.