Elon Musk took the stand in a crisp black suit this week in Oakland, California, and delivered a bombshell: he was duped into bankrolling OpenAI, his own AI company distills OpenAI's models, and artificial intelligence could kill us all. In the first week of the landmark trial Musk v. OpenAI, the world's richest man painted himself as a fool who gave $38 million to what he thought was a charity, only to watch it morph into an $800 billion for-profit juggernaut. But the most damning revelation came when Musk admitted under oath that xAI, his chatbot company, uses OpenAI's models to train its own — a confession that drew audible gasps in the courtroom and undercut his moral high ground.
The Big Picture
This trial is not just a billionaire's feud; it's a referendum on the soul of artificial intelligence. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit counterweight to Google, which he feared would build AI without adequate safety precautions. He testified that when he asked Google co-founder Larry Page what would happen if AI tried to wipe out humanity, Page replied, "That will be fine as long as artificial intelligence survives." That exchange drove Musk to fund OpenAI with $38 million of his own money. But when OpenAI restructured in 2019 to create a for-profit subsidiary, Musk felt betrayed. Now he's asking the court to remove CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman and to unwind the restructuring, a move that could upend OpenAI's race toward an IPO at a valuation approaching $1 trillion.
Meanwhile, Musk's own xAI is expected to go public as part of his rocket company SpaceX as early as June 2026, with a target valuation of $1.75 trillion. That timing raises uncomfortable questions: Is Musk a paladin of AI safety, as his lawyers argue, or a competitor using the courts to hobble a rival? OpenAI's lawyer, William Savitt — who once represented Musk and Tesla — countered that Musk "was never committed to OpenAI being a nonprofit" and is suing to undermine a competitor. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, visibly exasperated by both sides' grandstanding, snapped: "This is not a trial on whether or not artificial intelligence has damaged humanity." She also questioned Musk's own motives: "I suspect there's plenty of people who don't want to put the future of humanity in Mr. Musk's hands."
