On April 27th, a trial puts two of the most influential executives in the technology sector on opposite sides. On one side, the billionaire owner of Tesla () and the social network X, Elon Musk; on the other, OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. The dispute revolves around accusations that the creator of ChatGPT lied about its non-profit structure when Musk donated US$38 million to the company.
Altman, as well as Microsoft CEO (relevant shareholder Satya Nadella), is expected to testify in court.
It’s just a new stage in the relationship between Musk and Altman, which began as a business partnership in 2015. Together, they were two of the co-directors of OpenAI. At the time of founding a non-profit company that would seek to create “friendly” artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, Musk was already one of the big names in the technology industry and owner of Tesla. Altman was a rising name in Silicon Valley.
The climate between the two began to sour in 2018. At that point, OpenAI had already raised around US$1 billion in new investments and assessed that an alternative structure to the non-profit model was necessary. In a mixed model, the company could generate revenue in a for-profit arm.
Musk suggested, according to a statement published by OpenAI in March 2024, the company’s merger with Tesla as an alternative to maintain the growth rate. The billionaire allegedly sent an email saying that he “joins Tesla as his golden goose” and that “Tesla is the only way that could, in some way, compete with Google. Even so, the probability of it being a counterweight to Google is small. It’s just not zero.”
The OpenAI statement, published when conflicts between the billionaire and his former company had already started, says that Musk decided to leave OpenAI saying that he planned to build an artificial general intelligence competitor (theoretical field of an AI capable of performing any human task) within Tesla. The billionaire would found xAI, his AI platform.
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Before the crisis began, the discourse was different. A statement in February 2018 said that “Elon Musk will step down from the OpenAI Board but will continue to donate to and advise the organization. As Tesla increasingly focuses on AI, this will eliminate a potential future conflict for Elon.”
Donations made to OpenAI are today the subject of legal dispute between the billionaire and the company. For the accusation, the also owner of the artificial intelligence xAI and its shareholder Microsoft. The calculation is based on the methodology of economist from the consultancy Berkeley Research Group, C. Paul Wazzan, presented as an expert and witness.
The number was considered “unconvincing”, although it was not rejected. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said she was not ready to dismiss the claim based on a “five-page motion” justified by expert C. Paul Wazzan, an economist at the consultancy Berkeley Research Group.
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Public disputes
Owner of the social network X, Musk is notable for taking corporate and political disputes public — as with his former ally, Donald Trump. Disputes with OpenAI also resulted in exchanges of accusations on Twitter.
When OpenAI announced the , a four-year, $500 billion initiative to build AI infrastructure in the United States, Musk shot back: “They don’t have enough money for that.” The initiative is a partnership between the creator of ChatGPT and the managers SoftBank and MGX, in addition to the cloud company Oracle.
“SoftBank has well under $10 billion in collateral assets. I know from reliable sources,” Musk said.
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Altman responded to the post: “Wrong, as you certainly know.” At that time, in January 2025, Musk was still an ally of Donald Trump and headed the Department of “Government Efficiency”.
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Altman told Trump that Project Stargate would be “great for the country,” something that “is not always ideal for your companies.” “I hope that in your new role you will prioritize America.”
In August of that year, . The iPhone maker had announced earlier that year an integration of ChatGPT into its operating systems. In the process, Musk’s companies argued that the agreement would have anti-competitive implications by giving preference to OpenAI applications in Apple’s app store.
“This is a remarkable allegation, considering what I’ve heard that Elon does to manipulate X for his own benefit and that of his companies, harming his competitors and people he doesn’t like,” Altman said in a response to the X rival.
A few months later, Tesla’s CEO responded to a profile on the social network associating ChatGPT with nine cases of death: “Don’t let the people you love use ChatGPT”. of being responsible for cases of suicide and hallucinations on the application.
“Sometimes you complain that ChatGPT is too restrictive, and then, in cases like this, you claim that it is too permissive. Almost a billion people use it, and some of them may be in very fragile mental states”, replied Altman to the publication on X. He also took the opportunity to remember that more than 50 people would have died in accidents related to Tesla’s autopilot.
Anyone who accesses the OpenAI website today can find a page titled “The truth about Elon Musk and OpenAI” in which the developer lists a series of court documents issued and submitted to the court in the case that will begin to be judged. The company argues, for example, that Musk would have tried to use the process to access ChatGPT’s proprietary source codes.
Last week, Musk stated that profits from any legal victory in the OpenAI case will be donated to charity. “I’m not going to enrich myself in any way.”
Just over a month earlier, Altman said, “Very excited to see Elon under oath in a few months, Christmas is here in April!”
