Musk v. Altman live updates: Tesla CEO wanted to settle with OpenAI just days before trial, docs say

The second week of the Musk v. Altman trial began Monday in federal court with attention shifting from Elon Musk to co-defendant and OpenAI President Greg Brockman, as jurors heard testimony centered on Brockman's personal journal entries and debates over OpenAI's original nonprofit mission.

Musk was not in court, and the atmosphere outside the Oakland courthouse was noticeably calmer, with fewer protesters and smaller crowds. Inside, Musk's attorneys focused their questioning on Brockman, portraying him as motivated by money and drawn to Musk's influence during OpenAI's early years. At one point, Brockman was asked whether he was honored to work alongside Musk.

Marc Toberoff, an attorney for Musk, said, "Monday was a strong day in court."

Musk's legal team has long pointed to Brockman's journals as key evidence, arguing they show Brockman and co-defendant Sam Altman misled Musk about maintaining OpenAI as a nonprofit organization.

"In particular, Mr. Brockman's testimony and his journal, in his own unfiltered words, reinforce our confidence in our claims, and we look forward to continuing to build on this progress as the case proceeds," Toberoff said.

One 2017 journal entry introduced in court shows Brockman writing: "Financially, what will take me to $1B?" On the witness stand, Brockman testified that his stake in OpenAI is now worth nearly $30 billion. Musk's attorney pressed Brockman on what motivates him and why he didn't donate the difference of $29 billion back to the nonprofit.

William Savitt, an attorney for OpenAI, objected to that line of questioning, calling it "Theatrical grandstanding questions completely irrelevant to the lawsuit."

Toberoff honed in on that part of the testimony, adding of Brockman: "He's speaking as the director and officer of a nonprofit, a publicly subsidized nonprofit, and he's writing secretly. How do I get to $1 billion?"

Questioned about OpenAI's original charter, Brockman testified that its stated mission to serve humanity through artificial general intelligence remains intact.

"I think it is still accurate," Brockman said, adding, "I do stand by this is what we've been doing."

He denied breaching any duty to humanity, arguing the company's current structure has produced what he called "the most well-resourced nonprofit in history."

Brockman acknowledged that Musk personally helped OpenAI recruit top talent in its early days and said some prospective hires were often eager to meet Musk. He agreed that Musk's involvement lent OpenAI credibility and said some candidates were drawn to the opportunity to work alongside him. In a January 2018 email shown to the jury, Brockman wrote to Musk that it was an "honor to work alongside him," a statement Brockman confirmed on the stand.

Jurors also heard from UC Berkeley professor Stuart Russell, who testified as an expert witness on artificial intelligence risks. The judge, however, already barred any discussion of existential threats related to AI. Russell disclosed he was paid $5,000 an hour for his work on this case, totaling roughly $250,000, or about 20% of his annual earnings.

A newly revealed court filing shows Musk and Brockman exchanged text messages two days before the trial, discussing a possible settlement. After talks fell apart, Musk texted Brockman: "By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be."

The judge has ruled that those texts are not admissible at trial.

As Brockman's testimony began, the attorney said, "And now he has the opportunity to tell his story, which he's going to do tomorrow, and it'll be the story that will carry the day, because it's the story that is true, which is that it's a complex organization and a complex problem."

At one point Monday, Brockman defended his journal entries, describing them as expressions of frustration rather than a concrete plan. Musk's attorney pushed back, asking how often Brockman had rehearsed that explanation before taking the stand.

Brockman is expected to return to the witness stand on Tuesday as the trial continues in Oakland.

Elon Musk sought a potential settlement with OpenAI two days before his massive trial against the ChatGPT maker began last week, a new court filing from OpenAI says.

Musk sent a message to OpenAI President Greg Brockman "to gauge interest in settlement" on April 25, according to a filing submitted Sunday evening by OpenAI. The trial, which could shake up the AI race by removing CEO Sam Altman and Brockman from OpenAI's board if Musk gets his way, kicked off in a federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif. last week.

"When Mr. Brockman responded with a suggestion that both sides drop their respective claims, Mr. Musk shot back: 'By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be,'" the filing states.

Musk sued OpenAI and its leaders claiming they breached a charitable trust and unjustly enriched themselves by transitioning from a nonprofit to its current structure. The AI company is now a for-profit benefit corporation overseen by a nonprofit foundation.

Musk, who helped co-found and fund OpenAI, claimed the company and its executives deceived him into donating money to help create what is now one of the world's biggest AI companies, accusing them of "stealing a charity" in his testimony.

OpenAI claims Musk had pushed for a for-profit structure and is only pursuing legal action to bring down a competitor after he wasn't able to retain control over the company. Musk left OpenAI's board in 2018 and founded his own AI company, called xAI, in 2023.

OpenAI's attorneys tried to submit Musk's messages as evidence.

"It tends to prove motive and bias, and, in particular, that Mr. Musk's motivation in pursuing this lawsuit is to attack a competitor and its principals," the attorneys wrote in the filing.

But Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers denied the request, telling OpenAI's attorneys they should have submitted it as evidence during Musk's testimony.

Musk's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Altman worried that Musk would drop the case right before the trial, leaving him and OpenAI without a chance to tell their side of the story, he said on the Core Memory podcast last month.

OpenAI attorneys, who at times clashed with Musk in the courtroom last week, presented evidence they said showed Musk wanted a for-profit corporation, including evidence that he directed his associates to register a corporation in OpenAI's name. Musk's attorneys presented messages from 2022 in which Musk told Altman that OpenAI's $20 billion valuation following Microsoft's $10 billion investment felt like a "bait and switch."

"I agree it feels bad," Altman replied, before noting Musk declined the equity OpenAI offered him.

Brockman, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other high-profile figures in the tech industry are also expected to testify over the next couple of weeks.

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The legal battle between Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is entering its second week Monday at a federal courthouse in Oakland, with testimony expected from one of the defendants after Musk spent much of the first week on the witness stand.

Musk, the world's richest man, is suing his OpenAI co-founders, claiming they are "stealing a charity." He has maintained that characterization throughout the proceedings.

After Musk's extended testimony during week one, the trial is set to shift focus as co-defendant and OpenAI President Greg Brockman takes the stand to begin week two. Brockman's journal entries, which were unsealed earlier this year as legal teams prepared for trial, are expected to be part of the testimony.

Vincent Joralemon, director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and a former corporate attorney who has been following the case, said the disclosure highlights how invasive the legal process has been.

"A lot of the listeners here may not realize that, how intrusive this is," Joralemon said. "You know, Greg Brockman kept a journal and had to turn that over as evidence."

Joralemon said Musk's legal team is expected to continue emphasizing the idea that OpenAI's founders never truly intended the organization to remain a nonprofit.

"I think you're going to see a lot of Musk's side try to paint this as you never really thought this was going to be a nonprofit," he said.

Musk's testimony dominated most of the first week of trial and included several heated exchanges in the courtroom. According to Joralemon, the opening phase of the proceedings may have gone better for Musk than anticipated.

"Week one, actually probably went better for Elon than I would have expected," he said.

Beyond the courtroom, Joralemon said the case is also playing out in public opinion and could have broader market implications. OpenAI is set to go public later this year, and Joralemon suggested Musk has a financial incentive to introduce uncertainty.

"There is a real big economic benefit for him to create as much uncertainty around OpenAI as possible," he said.

Last week, the judge rejected multiple arguments from Musk's legal team, including Musk's repeated references to the "Terminator." Musk has said several times in court that artificial intelligence could kill humanity.

"This is the one circumstance, where Elon cannot just say whatever he wants," Joralemon said.

Musk has described the lawsuit as a case involving a stolen charity, while the defendants argue he is suing because he does not control OpenAI. Regardless of the case's outcome, Joralemon said the dispute itself could still benefit Musk.

"If Elon is, you know, putting, kind of giving OpenAI a black eye and starting to make them look, like they are unscrupulous or making them start to kind of look like the bad guys that might pay off in the long run for them," he said.

Elon Musk on Thursday sparred with an attorney for OpenAI during his third day of testimony in the contentious trial over the company's pivot from nonprofit status to a for-profit venture valued at hundreds of billions of dollars.

The trial centers on the 2015 birth of the ChatGPT maker as a nonprofit startup primarily funded by Musk. It pits the world's richest person against Sam Altman, a fellow OpenAI co-founder he accuses of betraying promises to keep the company as a nonprofit dedicated to humanity's benefit.

Tempers have flared on both sides of the high-stakes trial, as the morning began with an existential discussion about the future of humanity - complete with references to "The Terminator" movies - and how much witness testimony would focus on AI safety.

"Your client, despite these risks, is creating a company that is in the exact same space," Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers told Musk's lawyers, referring to the billionaire's xAI, which launched in 2023. People, she said, "don't want to put the future of humanity into Mr. Musk's hands," and instructed the parties not to discuss the dangers of AI to humanity during the course of the trial.

"This is not a trial on the safety risks of artificial intelligence. This is not a trial on whether or not AI has damaged humanity," she said. "It could be one day in a federal court in this country that we may have that trial. That is not this trial and we are not going to get sidetracked on that issue in this trial."

On the stand, Musk has taken issue with the cross-examination by opposing attorney William Savitt, accusing him of asking misleading questions designed to trick him and the jury. At one point Thursday, Savitt asked Musk about earlier testimony where he said that as long as investor profits were capped, OpenAI wasn't in violation of agreements to keep it a nonprofit.

"It depends on how high the cap is," Musk replied. Savitt then said that "wasn't your complete answer yesterday right?" In response, Musk said "few answers are going to be complete, especially if you cut me off all the time." He added that if the cap is "super high," then OpenAI is "really a for-profit at that point."

Lawyers for OpenAI have rejected the allegations brought in Musk's civil lawsuit and said there were never promises that the company would remain a nonprofit forever. The company has argued Musk's legal challenge is aimed at undercutting OpenAI's rapid growth and bolstering Musk's xAI, which he launched in 2023 as a competitor.

The trial in federal court in Oakland, California, is scheduled to continue through late May. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers excused Musk from the witness stand Thursday, but he may be called back later.

During the cross-examination, Savitt also asked Musk about his companies - Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and X - and whether they were all for-profit. Musk replied yes, and affirmed that he believes all of these companies are "socially beneficial."

Savitt then asked why Musk hasn't started a nonprofit himself, eight years after he left OpenAI.

"I thought I had started a nonprofit with OpenAI but they stole it," Musk replied, adding that this is "the entire basis of this lawsuit."