The trial opened with a series of exchanges between the bench and the plaintiff. Inside the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland, California, Federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers expressed frustration with Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s conduct. On Tuesday, April 30, 2026, the judge asked Musk, How can we get things done without you making things worse outside the courtroom?
The tension continued through Musk’s three-day testimony, which served as the centerpiece of the trial’s first week. While Musk testified about his role as a founder, Judge Gonzalez Rogers later described him as at times difficult
and noted that part of management from my perspective is just to get through testimony
, according to reporting by The Verge.
The $38 Million Donation vs. $850 Billion Valuation
The case involves a significant disparity in financial scale. Musk, who helped establish OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit, claims that the roughly $38 million he donated to the project was used for unauthorized commercial purposes. He argued from the stand that you can’t just steal a charity
.
The entity Musk helped fund has since scaled into a global powerhouse. Private investors now value OpenAI at over $850 billion, a trajectory that accelerated after the late 2022 launch of ChatGPT and a subsequent $10 billion equity raise from Microsoft. Musk testified that while he is not entirely opposed to the existence of a for-profit unit, the commercial arm eventually became the tail wagging the dog
.
Musk’s core grievance is the nature of the company’s transition. He accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman of enriching themselves from a charity while maintaining the prestige associated with nonprofit status. What you can’t do is have your cake and eat it too
, Musk told the jury, as reported by CNBC.
Control, Competition, and the xAI Pivot
While Musk frames the suit as a defense of charitable integrity, the defense is painting a picture of a failed bid for corporate control. During cross-examination, lead counsel William Savitt of Wachtell Lipton suggested that Musk’s funding ceased not because of a mission shift, but because he could not secure total dominance of the organization.
For more on this story, see Elon Musk sues OpenAI founders over $38 million donation deception in Oakland trial.
Evidence presented during the trial indicates that Musk initially sought four board seats and 51 percent of the shares. Under that proposed structure, other co-founders would have shared three seats, voted on by shareholders. This would have granted Musk definitive control over the initial seven-member board.
The defense further highlighted Musk’s actions after he left the OpenAI board in 2018. In 2017, Musk hired Andrej Karpathy, one of OpenAI’s top engineers, to work at Tesla. Despite his fiduciary duties as a board member at the time, Musk did not attempt to persuade Karpathy to remain at OpenAI. Musk defended this on the stand, stating, I think people should have a right to work where they want to work
.
This pattern of competition continued recently when Musk started xAI, a direct competitor to OpenAI, which he later merged with SpaceX in February 2026. The defense noted this sequence of events to question the consistency of Musk’s testimony regarding his relationship with the organization.
The Safety Counterweight and Judicial Friction
Musk testified that his original motivation for founding OpenAI was to create a counterweight
to Google. He viewed Google as having insufficient concerns regarding AI safety, a belief that led to a dispute with Google co-founder Larry Page. According to Musk, Page called him a speciesist for being pro-human
.
Musk’s insistence on his role as the indispensable architect of the company was a recurring theme. Musk said OpenAI wouldn’t exist without him
, claiming he provided the name, the idea, the initial funding, and the recruitment of key personnel.
However, this narrative of a disciplined founder clashed with his courtroom demeanor. The Verge reported that Musk spent hours quibbling over simple questions and refused to provide direct yes-or-no answers during cross-examination. Despite claiming on the stand, I don’t yell at people
and I don’t lose my temper
, observers noted instances where he became petty and argumentative with Savitt.
The legal strategy for OpenAI remains focused on characterizing Musk’s allegations as baseless
. While the company’s internal defensive strategy is not fully detailed in the public record, their counsel has leaned heavily on Musk’s own deposition to highlight inconsistencies in his account of the company’s early governance.
Governance Implications for the AI Sector
The outcome of the Musk v. Altman trial may provide clarity on how AI labs manage the transition from research-oriented nonprofits to commercial giants. If the court finds that OpenAI’s commercialization violated its original charitable charter, it could lead to a wider re-evaluation of how “capped-profit” or hybrid structures are regulated.
For now, the trial remains a study in personality and power. With Sam Altman and Greg Brockman expected to testify later this month, the focus will shift from Musk’s claims of a stolen charity to the internal decision-making processes that led to OpenAI’s $850 billion valuation. The tension remains whether the court views this as a breach of trust or a standard evolution of a high-growth tech enterprise.
