Elon Musk fights in court to portray himself as hero, not villain, in founding of OpenAI

The Tesla CEO showed frustration in court when OpenAI’s lawyer suggested that Musk had sought to take control of OpenAI and hired away a key employee.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Tesla chief executive Elon Musk sparred in federal court for hours Wednesday with a lawyer representing ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, in a verbal tussle over whether the billionaire played the role of hero or villain in the founding of the artificial intelligence company he is now suing along with its top executives.

In Musk’s telling when he took the stand Tuesday, he was the driving force behind OpenAI’s 2015 founding and early success, providing initial funding and using his business clout to secure key technology and employees. But as OpenAI’s lead attorney in court Bill Savitt cross-examined Musk on Wednesday, he argued that Musk reneged on providing most of the money he had committed, poached a top researcher for Tesla and abandoned OpenAI after his co-founders refused an unreasonable demand to give him full control of the company.

The clashing views of Musk’s actions at OpenAI are central to the case, which Musk brought against his fellow OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman, the company’s CEO, and Greg Brockman, its president, alleging they illegally turned the nonprofit organization into a for-profit firm for their own enrichment. Musk is demanding that Brockman and Altman be fired and that the company be restored as a nonprofit, which would upend OpenAI’s plans to go public later this year.

OpenAI has said Musk is trying to harm a competitor to his own AI venture, xAI. Musk initially filed his lawsuit in 2024, and two years of legal wrangling have already surfaced hundreds of legal documents filled with texts and emails between Musk, Altman and other tech titans.

Altman and Brockman have been present in court, but Musk has dominated the three days of court action, even during jury selection on Monday. Prospective jurors were asked whether they could put aside any opinions they held on Musk’s politics if they were selected.

During opening arguments on Tuesday, Musk’s lawyer talked up the billionaire’s accomplishments in building his electric-car and space companies, and called him as the first witness to testify. OpenAI’s lawyer began cross-examining Musk late on Tuesday, and he has sat for nearly seven hours of testimony over two days. Musk is expected to speak more on Thursday.