Musk v. Altman Trial: Week 2 Reveals Musk Tried to Poach Sam Altman for Tesla AI Lab
During the second week of the pivotal trial involving Elon Musk and OpenAI, fresh testimony was presented. OpenAI's president, Greg Brockman, stated that Musk advocated for a for-profit model and desired complete control, which contradicts Musk's assertion that he was misled into contributing $38 million. Additionally, Shivon Zilis, a former board member of OpenAI and mother of four of Musk's children, disclosed that Musk attempted to persuade Sam Altman to head a competing AI lab at Tesla back in 2017. Brockman further recounted an incident where Musk left a meeting in anger after being refused majority equity, taking a Tesla painting with him. The outcome of the trial may influence OpenAI's IPO ambitions and xAI's public offering. Ilya Sutskever and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella are scheduled to testify next week.
Key facts
- Elon Musk sued OpenAI, alleging deception over its nonprofit mission.
- Greg Brockman testified that Musk pushed for a for-profit arm and sought absolute control.
- Shivon Zilis revealed Musk tried to poach Sam Altman for a Tesla AI lab.
- Musk stormed out of a 2017 meeting after being denied majority equity.
- Musk is seeking up to $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft.
- OpenAI's IPO valuation could approach $1 trillion; xAI targets $1.75 trillion.
- Brockman's journal entries showed he wanted to become a billionaire.
- Musk texted Brockman before trial: 'By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America.'
Entities
Artists
- Elon Musk
- Sam Altman
- Greg Brockman
- Shivon Zilis
- Ilya Sutskever
- Mira Murati
- Helen Toner
- Satya Nadella
- Andrej Karpathy
- Steven Molo
- Sarah Eddy
- Anna Brockman
- Amber Heard
- Mark Zuckerberg
- Stuart Russell
- Jill Horwitz
- Rose Chan Loui
Institutions
- OpenAI
- Tesla
- Microsoft
- xAI
- SpaceX
- Neuralink
- Cerebras
- CoreWeave
- Helion Energy
- Stoke Space
- MIT Technology Review
- Business Insider
- The Verge
- New Yorker
- UC Berkeley
- DeepSeek
- Anthropic
- Wired
- Bloomberg
- Meta
- Northwestern University
- UCLA School of Law
- California Attorney General
- Delaware Attorney General
- Helion
- Hydrazine
- Safe Superintelligence
- Fordham Law School
- US District Court for the Northern District of California
- The Wall Street Journal
- Bloomberg Law
- The Guardian
- NPR
- The New York Times
- VentureBeat
- The Information
- The New Yorker
Locations
- San Francisco
- United States
- Oakland
- California
- Colorado
- Northern California
- Delaware
- Nevada
- Black Rock Desert