{"id":725357,"date":"2026-05-03T17:50:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T14:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/musks-case-against-openai-lands-roughly-in-its-first-week\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T17:50:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T14:50:23","slug":"musks-case-against-openai-lands-roughly-in-its-first-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/musks-case-against-openai-lands-roughly-in-its-first-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk\u2019s case against OpenAI lands roughly in its first week"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3ee316ec6fc\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3ee316ec6fc\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/musks-case-against-openai-lands-roughly-in-its-first-week\/#Three_days_several_admissions\" >Three days, several admissions<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/musks-case-against-openai-lands-roughly-in-its-first-week\/#Whats_coming_next\" >What\u2019s coming next?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.thenextweb.com\/2026\/04\/Sam-Altman-v-Elon-Musk-trial.avif\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"article-main-content\">\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Three days of cross-examination in Oakland produced a $130bn lawsuit\u2019s most awkward admissions, including that xAI trains on OpenAI\u2019s models. The judge, not the jury, will decide.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Elon Musk took the stand in Oakland on Tuesday with a story he has been telling for two years. He had founded OpenAI in 2015, he said, to keep advanced artificial intelligence out of the hands of any single company. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, his former collaborators, had then quietly turned the lab into a for-profit empire, taken billions from Microsoft, and shut him out. The lawsuit he filed in 2024 was, in his framing, a corrective: a bid to restore the original nonprofit and recover what he says was stolen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Three days later, that story looked considerably more contested than it had on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"inarticle-wrapper channel-cta\">\n<div class=\"ica-text\">\n<p class=\"ica-text__title\">TNW City Coworking space &#8211; Where your best work h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ens<\/p>\n<p>A workspace designed for growth, collaboration, and endless networking opportunities in the heart of tech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Musk\u2019s case had hit \u201csome rough spots.\u201d Musk\u2019s own admissions on cross-examination, the judge\u2019s repeated warnings about the scope of the dispute, and a <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">series<\/a> of pre-trial rulings narrowing the legal claims have all combined to make the world\u2019s richest man\u2019s case against the most valuable AI company in the world look, at least at this stage, harder to win than its initial framing implied.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The trial opened on 28 April in the federal courthouse in Oakland, before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. A nine-person jury was seated the day before. Musk, his lawyers, OpenAI, Altman, Brockman, and Microsoft are all in the suit. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The headline damages figure is more than $130bn, though some early coverage has cited $150bn; either way the structural remedies Musk is seeking, including a partial unwinding of OpenAI\u2019s for-profit conversion, are arguably the more consequential ask.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The procedural setup is unusual. Although a jury has been impanelled, its verdict is advisory only. Judge Gonzalez Rogers will make the final decision on liability and on remedy, and is expected to rule by mid-May. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The trial is therefore less a contest for the jury\u2019s hearts and minds than a long, public deposition in front of the judge, who has already pruned the case before it began. She dismissed Musk\u2019s fraud claims pre-trial and warned both sides.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Three_days_several_admissions\"><\/span>Three days, several admissions<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Musk was the first witness. He spent parts of three days on the stand, first under questioning from his own counsel, then under sustained cross-examination by William Savitt, OpenAI\u2019s lead lawyer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first awkward moment came on the question of nonprofit commitment, the theory at the heart of the case. Savitt produced internal documents and contemporaneous communications that, in his framing, showed Musk had pushed in 2017 and 2018 for OpenAI to convert into a for-profit under his control, and had walked away from the project when that did not happen. \u201c<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>You were never committed to OpenAI being a nonprofit,\u201c<\/em> Savitt put to him, in an exchange. Musk disputed the characterisation but conceded the documents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The second awkward moment, audible from the gallery, was Musk\u2019s acknowledgement that xAI, his own AI company and the maker of the chatbot Grok, distils on OpenAI\u2019s models, in effect training on the outputs of the very system he says was wrongly converted to private gain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The third was procedural. Savitt argued that Musk had waited too long to sue, and that key claims were filed after the relevant statute of limitations expired. Whether the judge accepts that defence is a separate question, but the timeline becomes part of the record either way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even before opening statements, Judge Gonzalez Rogers had reshaped the case. Her pre-trial rulings dropped Musk\u2019s fraud claims and confined the trial to the narrower question of whether OpenAI breached charitable-trust and contract obligations when it restructured. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That makes the case less dramatic in framing, but easier to litigate, and arguably harder for Musk to win on his original theory of grand betrayal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On day three, Gonzalez Rogers cautioned the lawyers against treating the proceedings as a referendum on AI safety or on Altman\u2019s character. Both sides have been prone to the slippage. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Musk, on the stand, repeated long-running arguments that AI poses existential risk, an answer the judge appeared to find tangential to the legal question of whether OpenAI\u2019s directors breached their fiduciary duties.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Whats_coming_next\"><\/span>What\u2019s coming next?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The trial is expected to run another two to three weeks. Altman is set to testify, as are Brockman, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, and several of OpenAI\u2019s earliest engineers. Musk\u2019s expert witnesses, according to court documents, include the Berkeley AI researcher Stuart Russell and the Columbia Law School tax-and-nonprofit specialist David Schizer. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OpenAI is expected to call its own roster of governance and AI-safety experts, with Axios reporting that the defendants intend to put Grok\u2019s own safety record in front of the jury.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Musk may yet recover ground. Cross-examinations of his founding partners could produce admissions of their own; the documentary record, which neither side disputes runs into thousands of pages, is broad enough to support more than one reading. The judge, not the jury, will decide, and her record so far suggests a willingness to rule on the merits rather than the theatrics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the first week, judged on its own, did not go well for the plaintiff. A case that began as a story about a betrayed mission has become, in places, a case about a litigant whose own conduct is now part of the evidence. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If that complicates the verdict or simply colours the coverage is something only Judge Gonzalez Rogers will settle, sometime in the next few weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMN63nwsw68G3Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/musk-openai-trial-week-one-rough-spots\" target=\"_blank\" >Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three days of cross-examination in Oakland produced a $130bn lawsuit\u2019s most awkward admissions, including that xAI trains on OpenAI\u2019s models. The judge, not the jury, will decide. Elon Musk took the stand in Oakland on Tuesday with a story he has been telling for two years. He had founded OpenAI in 2015, he said, to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":725358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.thenextweb.com\/2026\/04\/Sam-Altman-v-Elon-Musk-trial.avif","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-725357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}