The trial that pits two of Silicon Valley’s titans, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, face to face, began last Monday (27) with the selection of the case’s jury. But the dispute is not restricted to the courts. Publicly, billionaires have been exchanging barbs for more than a year.
In a publication made on Monday, Musk even nicknamed his current rival “Scam Altman”, a play on the term “scam” which, in English, means “fraud”. Tesla’s CEO alleges that Altman and his right-hand man at OpenAI, Greg Stockman, “robbed a charity.”
The dispute that reached the courts in the United States actually originates in 2015, when Musk and Altman were still partners in founding OpenAI, when the company was conceived as a non-profit institution.
Continues after advertising
The nine-person jury formed earlier this week in the federal court in Oakland, California, will decide whether the company has abandoned its role of creating “friendly” AI for the benefit of humanity to become a for-profit company.
In the publication made last Monday, Musk states that Stockman would have kept tens of billions in company shares for himself and Altman closed dozens of parallel deals with OpenAI, “with a slice of the pie for himself”. He also said that the role would be similar to Altman’s at the startup accelerator Y Combinator, of which he was president.
In November 2023, a Washington Post story reported, based on reports from three sources, that Altman had been expelled from the accelerator due to concerns that he was prioritizing his interests over those of the company.
The way in which the business partnership relationship between two of the most important names in the technology industry emerged, rose and went sour has already been the subject of, in InfoMoney.
Public fight
Despite Altman’s history of responses to Musk, at least this time the executive remained out of the spotlight while the trial begins. On Sunday (26), he limited himself to making a post on
An official profile of OpenAI said on Monday that the company could not see the time to present the case in court. “This lawsuit has always been a baseless and jealous attempt to sabotage a competitor,” he said.
Continues after advertising
Musk is the founder of xAI, a company dedicated to developing generative artificial intelligence behind Grok.
“Finally, we will have the opportunity to question Mr. Musk under oath before a jury of Californians about this attempt to undermine our work to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity,” the company’s post said.
The process promoted by Musk, the main investor in the startup that created ChatGPT. The calculation to reach this value is based on potential earnings of US$38 million invested by Musk in the company during its creation.
Continues after advertising
The compensation amount 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.
On OpenAI’s side, the argument is that Musk knew the path the company would take and decided to file the lawsuit only when he followed his own path and founded a company in the same field. A statement published by OpenAI in 2024 says that Musk would have tried to place the startup within the Tesla structure.
Yvonne Gonzales Rogers has already stated that she expects a decision from the judges by May 12th. In case of liability, the parties must present solutions to the judge.
Continues after advertising
