In a federal courtroom in Oakland, California, the legal battle between Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has surfaced a question that Silicon Valley has been wrestling with for a decade: who gets to control artificial general intelligence? The two co-founders of the influential startup, whose ChatGPT product ignited a global AI race, accuse one another of betraying the company’s founding promise to safely develop AGI for the benefit of all humanity and not for any one person’s gain. A jury of nine people from the San Francisco Bay Area will decide which version of the story is true.
Musk’s lawsuit, filed against Altman, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, and the company itself, contends that Altman broke commitments to keep OpenAI as a nonprofit. Musk testified last week that he could have founded the company as a for-profit entity — like his other ventures — but “deliberately chose this, for the public good.” He said he was motivated by a desire to create a “counterpoint” to Google, which at the time held “all the money, all the computers and all the talent” for AI with no check on its power.
Brockman, who testified this week, painted a different picture. His “No. 1 goal,” he said, was always OpenAI’s nonprofit mission, and it was Musk who sought unilateral control. Brockman recalled a meeting where Musk initially appeared open to Altman serving as CEO but then insisted, “people needed to know he was in charge.”
The dispute over control has played out against a backdrop of warnings about the technology itself. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers cautioned lawyers, particularly Musk’s, not to turn the trial into a debate over AI safety risks. “This is not a trial on the safety risks of artificial intelligence,” she told them before jurors entered the courtroom.
Still, the dangers of advanced AI seeped into testimony. Musk said artificial general intelligence — when AI becomes “as smart as any human” — could arrive as soon as next year, with systems soon surpassing human intelligence. “I was concerned AI would be a double-edged sword,” he testified.
Stuart Russell, a UC Berkeley computer scientist and AI expert paid $5,000 an hour by Musk’s legal team, offered the jury a catalog of potential harms. He spoke of racial and gender discrimination, massive job displacement, misinformation, and the risk of emotional attachments that can push chatbot users toward psychosis. The “winner take all” dynamic of the AI race, he said, is itself a threat to humanity.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers expressed some skepticism of Musk’s position outside the presence of the jury. She noted that Musk, “despite these risks, is creating a company that is in the exact same space” — a reference to xAI, the artificial intelligence company Musk launched in 2023 and later merged with SpaceX.
Beyond damages, Musk is seeking to remove Altman from OpenAI’s board. A victory for Musk could derail the company’s plans for an initial public offering, a milestone that would unlock billions in capital and cement OpenAI’s position at the center of the industry.
The trial is expected to continue with further testimony in the coming days.