The most expensive frenemy fallout in tech history began in a federal courtroom in Oakland.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is suing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for more than $130 billion, alleging that Altman and OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman swindled him and betrayed the company’s founding charitable mission. The chief complaint centers on Altman’s 2023 move to spin OpenAI’s core technology into a for-profit subsidiary, now valued at almost $1 trillion.
Musk, who donated about $38 million of OpenAI’s earliest funding, wants the judge to unwind the for-profit conversion, force Altman and Brockman out of their roles, and direct any damages to OpenAI’s nonprofit arm.
To counter, Altman is expected to bring up all the dirt he has on Musk, including a Burning Man trip and a former OpenAI board member who is also the mother of four of Musk’s known 14 children.
Pretrial documents unveiled raw text messages between the two. In February 2023, Altman wrote: “You’re my hero…I am tremendously thankful for everything you’ve done to help.”
Musk’s reply read: “I hear you and it is certainly not my intention to be hurtful, for which I apologize, but the fate of civilization is at stake.”
The trial is scheduled for four weeks, with both Altman and Musk testifying.
Sam Brunson, a nonprofit law professor at Loyola University Chicago, said the threshold question—whether someone who gave money to a charity can sue if the charity changes course—almost always cuts against the donor.
“If I donate to an organization, I’ve given up that money, and if it turns out that I don’t like what they do subsequently, my recourse is to stop donating to them,” Brunson said.
The most damaging evidence comes from Brockman’s personal notes—his “diary”—which Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers quoted in her January order sending the case to trial.
In September 2017, Brockman wrote: “This is the only chance we have to get out from Elon…Financially, what will take me to $1B?”
The case is a longshot, Brunson noted, unless Musk can prove he was lied to when he donated.
OpenAI’s plan is to cast Musk as a jilted, unreliable narrator. Judge Gonzalez Rogers carved out an exception for Musk to be questioned about his attendance at the 2017 Burning Man festival.
There’s also Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member and mother of four of Musk’s children, expected to spend roughly three hours on the stand.