High-Stakes Confrontation Unfolds as Billionaire Entrepreneur Lashes Out at AI Leader's Top Brass on Eve of Landmark Court Battle

Table of Contents The legal showdown between Elon Musk and OpenAI has progressed into its second week, with additional crucial witnesses scheduled to appear in the Oakland, California courtroom. NEWS: Sam Altman invites Elon Musk to OpenAI's GPT-5.5 launch party, says "world needs more love." Altman is throwing a small celebration on May 5 to mark the release of OpenAI's latest model, GPT-5.5. He shared an online RSVP form, with OpenAI's coding agent Codex helping… pic.twitter.com/4TDl32Z835 — Muskonomy (@muskonomy) May 3, 2026 Greg Brockman, serving as OpenAI’s President, is slated to deliver testimony on Monday. His appearance comes after Musk’s extended time on the witness stand, which stretched across nearly three full days during the previous week. According to Musk’s testimony, he contributed $38 million to OpenAI under the understanding that the organization would maintain its nonprofit status. He contends that both Altman and Brockman deceived him while covertly developing plans to transform the entity into a for-profit enterprise. The billionaire’s legal demands include three primary objectives: the removal of both Altman and Brockman from their leadership positions, financial compensation potentially totaling $180 billion, and the annulment of OpenAI’s transformation into a for-profit corporation. Recently unsealed court documents disclosed that Musk contacted Brockman just 48 hours prior to the trial’s commencement in an attempt to negotiate a settlement. According to the filing, when Brockman proposed that both parties withdraw their respective claims, Musk reportedly responded, “By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America.” Musk’s attorneys plan to leverage Brockman’s private journal documentation as evidence against him. A particular entry from 2017 allegedly contains the statement, “We’ve been thinking that maybe we should just flip to a for profit. Making the money for us sounds great and all.” In his recorded deposition, Brockman clarified that this journal entry pertained to developing a revenue strategy to sustain OpenAI’s core mission, rather than pursuing personal financial enrichment. Additional trial evidence showed that during 2017, Musk directed his associate Jared Birchall to prepare and submit incorporation documents for a profit-oriented iteration of OpenAI. Musk testified this was executed as a contingency measure and ultimately went unused. A text message presented as courtroom evidence showed Shivon Zilis, who previously served on OpenAI’s board, messaging Birchall: “Heads up. Seems like Greg, Ilya, Elon a go on for-profit.” While testifying, Musk voluntarily provided his assessment of leading AI companies. He positioned Anthropic at the top, followed by OpenAI in second place, Google securing third position, Chinese open-source AI models in fourth, and his own venture xAI ranking fifth. He further admitted that xAI has engaged “partly” in model distillation from competing AI organizations—a technique involving one artificial intelligence system learning by conducting large-scale queries against another. Musk characterized xAI as a “very small company,” estimating its size at approximately one-tenth that of OpenAI. SpaceX completed its acquisition of xAI this past February. The trial’s upcoming witness roster includes several high-profile technology leaders: Sam Altman, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella, former OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, and co-founder Ilya Sutskever. Proceedings commenced on April 28 under the jurisdiction of U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, with expectations that the trial will continue for several additional weeks. A final verdict could potentially be delivered by mid-May. Discover top-performing stocks in AI, Crypto, and Technology with expert analysis.