Teslaconomics@Teslaconomics
Today is the start of a very important day in the AI world... the trial between Elon and Sam/OpenAI begins today in Oakland Federal Court. The jury selection is happening right now in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and opening arguments are expected Tuesday. The civil jury trial is projected to last 2-4 weeks, with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers making the final call.
So let me tell you why this fight all came about.
1/ In 2015 Elon co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman and others as a nonprofit to develop artificial general intelligence safely and openly for the benefit of all humanity... this was supposed to NOT be for profit or for closed corporate control. Elon was a major early funder, contributing around $38-44 million (~60% of early seed funding) plus resources like compute and recruiting.
2/ Then, Elon left the board in 2018 over disagreements for the direction of the company and Microsoft’s growing role of the company.
3/ Later, OpenAI took billions from Microsoft, restructured with a for-profit arm, initially “capped profit,” now more commercial... went closed-source in practice, and exploded in value with ChatGPT. FYI, the current valuation of OpenAI now sits at ~$852 billion and the company recently completed restructuring with a for-profit entity reporting into a nonprofit foundation.
Now, with the trial, Elon is saying Altman, Brockman, and OpenAI breached the founding charitable trust and agreement by turning it into a “wealth machine” that prioritizes profits and insiders over the original mission. He claims they deceived him about their plans...
This lawsuit was originally filed in November 2024, was withdrawn, and then revived in early 2026. And just this Friday, April 24, Elon voluntarily dropped the fraud claims to “streamline” the case and keep the jury focused on the mission issue... proceeding on breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.
This is what Elon is looking to get back from Sam and OpenAI:
a/ substantial damages, with stakes in the $100B+ range, with many reports saying it's in the range of ~$134B and the winnings will be given to the nonprofit/charity arm and will NOT benefit Elon personally
b/ possible unwinding/restructuring to restore the original nonprofit mission
c/ leadership changes (e.g., getting rid of Altman/Brockman from key roles).
On the other side, OpenAI is claiming:
a/ Elon knew about and once supported commercialization steps, saying he even explored merging with Tesla or gaining control himself
b/ OpenAI calls the suit competitive sabotage from rival Elon's company xAI and says this is driven by jealousy over OpenAI’s success
This is SUCH an important trial in the world of AI... people may not fully understand.
The reason is bc Elon has repeatedly warned that profit-driven, closed-source AGI is very dangerous. This is his chance to enforce the original “benefit humanity” mission he helped create and walked away from in 2018. A big win will hurt OpenAI’s valuation, upcoming IPO plans, Microsoft partnership, and market dominance/customer perspective of the company... and this will also force real changes in how the world’s leading AI lab operates, influencing the entire AI race and future regulations.
For me, Sam Altman straight up CANNOT be trusted with the future of AGI, and this trial proves why Elon was right to fight it. This is the same guy who got fired by his own board in 2023 for not being “consistently candid,” then crawled back in and turned the nonprofit “open for humanity” promise into a closed-source, Microsoft-bankrolled profit machine worth hundreds of billions. Elon was the one who put up the early cash and vision to keep AI safe and beneficial for all of us... not to create a trillion-dollar insider club. If Altman gets away with rewriting the rules after the fact, it sets a dangerous precedent that mission-driven tech is just marketing fluff. I believe Elon isn’t doing this for ego or rivalry... he’s really doing it bc someone has to hold the line before profit-over-people AGI becomes unstoppable. This one’s personal for the man who actually wants to understand the universe instead of just cashing in on it. Humanity needs Elon to win.
And that's who I'm rooting for!
