Musk v. Altman Trial Begins: "Stole a Charity" vs. "Didn’t Get His Way"
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“They stole a charity.” “He didn’t get his way.” The Musk-Altman trial opened with two stories that cannot both be true.
April 28, 2026 – 8:12 pm
Opening arguments in Musk v. Altman began Tuesday in Oakland.
The Arguments:
Elon Musk’s lead trial lawyer, Steven Molo, claimed, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today because the defendants in this case stole a charity." He argued that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman betrayed Elon Musk and the public by turning OpenAI from a nonprofit dedicated to safe AI development into a for-profit "wealth machine."
William Savitt, representing Altman, Brockman, and OpenAI, countered, "We are here because Mr. Musk didn’t get his way at OpenAI… but my clients had the nerve to go on and succeed without him."
Key Moments:
- Musk Testifies: Musk took the stand as the trial’s first witness, renouncing personal damages and pledging any award to OpenAI’s nonprofit. The judge warned Musk about his "Scam Altman" social media posts.
- Central Analogy: Molo used a museum/Picasso analogy: "a nonprofit museum can open a gift shop, but… the museum store can’t loot the museum and sell the Picassos."
- Microsoft Investment: Molo argued that Microsoft’s $10 billion investment in January 2023, valuing OpenAI at $20 billion, violated the nonprofit’s mission.
- Charitable Trust: Molo maintained that Musk’s donations formed a charitable trust requiring OpenAI to remain a nonprofit in perpetuity.
The trial is expected to last about four weeks and could yield remedies worth up to $134 billion flowing back into OpenAI’s nonprofit foundation, Altman and Brockman’s removal from their roles, or the forced reversion of OpenAI to a nonprofit structure.