Elon Musk appears in court at start of case that could reshape AI’s future

Tesla chief Elon Musk has appeared in court in a high-stakes trial revolving around a bitter feud between himself and former friends Sam Altman and Greg Brockman that could reshape the future development of artificial intelligence (AI).

The bickering billionaires’ appearances at a federal court in Oakland, California, foreshadow the start of a legal drama expected to brim with intrigue and potentially embarrassing details about the tech moguls.

Mr Musk filed the lawsuit against Mr Altman and Mr Brockman along with Microsoft over its investments in OpenAI in 2024.

The Tesla chief and world’s richest man was one of a team of original co-founders of OpenAI, along with the current chief executive Mr Altman and president Mr Brockman.

“Fundamentally, I think they’re going to try to make this lawsuit … very complicated, but it’s actually very simple,” Mr Musk said. “Which is that it’s not OK to steal a charity.”

The trial is scheduled to take three weeks.

Opening arguments began with Mr Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, who quoted OpenAI’s mission statement when it was created as a non-profit for the benefit of humanity as a whole, and not constrained by the need to generate financial enrichment for anyone.

Mr Altman and his top lieutenant Mr Brockman, aided by Microsoft, “stole a charity”, Mr Molo said, “a charity whose mission was the safe, open development of artificial intelligence”.

In the civil lawsuit, Mr Musk accuses Mr Altman and Mr Brockman of double-crossing him by straying from the San Francisco company’s founding mission to be a steward of a revolutionary technology.

He is seeking damages and to fund the altruistic efforts of OpenAI’s charitable arm and Mr Altman’s removal from OpenAI’s board.

OpenAI has brushed off Mr Musk’s allegations as an unfounded case of sour grapes aimed at undercutting its rapid growth and bolstering Mr Musk’s own xAI, which he launched in 2023 as a competitor.

In his opening statement, OpenAI lawyer William Savitt told jurors “we are here because Mr Musk didn’t get his way with OpenAI”.

Mr Savitt said Mr Musk used his promises to provide funding to bully OpenAI founding members and tried to take control of OpenAI and merge it with Tesla.

In fact, he said Mr Musk wanted to form a for-profit company and own more than 50% of it. In the middle of discussions about OpenAI’s future, he added, Mr Musk pulled the plug on five million dollars (£3.7 million) in quarterly donations he was making.

There is no record, Mr Savitt said, of promises made to Mr Musk that OpenAI was going to remain a non-profit forever, or open-source everything. What Mr Musk ultimately cared about, he said, was not OpenAI’s non-profit status but winning the AI race with Google.

Mr Molo said the case is not about Mr Musk, but rather Mr Altman, Mr Brockman and Microsoft.

By 2017, about two years after OpenAI’s founding, it became clear that OpenAI would need more money, and Mr Molo said the founders eventually settled on the idea of creating a for-profit arm of OpenAI that would support the non-profit.

Terms were capped for investors so they “couldn’t make infinite profit”.

“There is nothing wrong with a non-profit having a for-profit subsidiary, but (it) has to advance the mission,” Mr Molo said.

Microsoft initially invested two billion dollars (£1.4 billion) in OpenAI. Then, in 2022, news spread that OpenAI had done a deal with Microsoft and “this was a horse of a completely different colour”, he said.

It was a “gamechanger”, Mr Molo said, that violated “every commitment” OpenAI made not just to Mr Musk but to the world.

It was no longer open source, it became a for-profit company for the benefit of the defendants and Microsoft was going to have control, through licensing, of much of its intellectual property, Mr Molo said.

After opening arguments wrap up, Mr Musk’s side is expected to present a tale chock full of alleged betrayal, deceit and ambition that caused OpenAI to pivot from its founding mission as an altruistic start-up to a capitalistic venture now valued at 852 billion dollars (£629 billion).

Mr Musk, the world’s richest person with an estimated fortune of 778 billion dollars (£574 billion), is among the witnesses.

Mr Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, is also expected to give evidence, along with Microsoft chief Satya Nadella, one of the technology leaders who helped fund the late 2022 release of ChatGPT, the chatbot that unleashed the current AI boom that has propelled the stock market to record heights.

Mr Altman’s court appearance likely made him unavailable to attend an Amazon event across San Francisco Bay on Tuesday at which both companies announced an expanded partnership.

“I wish I could be there with you in person today,” Mr Altman told attendees of Amazon’s event in San Francisco via a pre-recorded video message. “My schedule got taken away from me today.”