OAKLAND, Calif. — Almost everything we see from Elon Musk and Sam Altman, two of the most powerful men in Silicon Valley, comes to us in the form of carefully constructed personas.
Musk, who prefers to dress entirely in black, associates his image with rockets, homemade flamethrowers and even a .50 caliber sniper rifle. Altman seeks to convey the aura of a veteran statesman, posing in portraits as a kind of heir to Steve Jobs. Tech billionaires, it seems, care a lot about how the public perceives them.
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But a bitter court case between the two revealed another side to them. For the past two weeks, I’ve spent hours on the fourth floor of the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Courthouse in Oakland, California, waiting for Musk and Altman as they face off in a trial full of accusations and provocations over OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company they founded together.
Musk’s lawsuit against Altman is important, with billions of dollars and the future of the AI industry at stake. But the case also matters for another reason: It offered an up-close look at how two men who together are worth more than $670 billion function under extreme pressure.
Musk, 54, appeared to have carried a stress ball with him to squeeze, holding it as he fidgeted during his testimony. Altman, 41, occasionally exchanged glances with others as he walked from the witness area to the courtroom. (Musk often looked at the floor.) And OpenAI president Greg Brockman, 38, was surprisingly tall in person and was almost always accompanied by his wife, Anna.
Think of the trial this way: It was like watching the Wizard of Oz after Toto, Dorothy’s dog, reveals who’s really behind the curtain.
“The traditional way technology executives operate is to shield themselves from being seen as ordinary people, building huge armies of advisors, public relations teams and organizational processes to create a completely fabricated image,” said Dex Hunter-Torricke, founder of the Center for Tomorrow, a nonprofit dedicated to social issues that could arise from AI. “The moment you can pull back the curtain, Wizard of Oz style, you realize these people are just human beings.”
In his 2024 lawsuit, Musk accused OpenAI of taking advantage of his money and violating the company’s founding agreement, which called for a nonprofit organization that would put the public interest above commercial interests. OpenAI said the lawsuit is frivolous and intended to slow the company down while Musk creates a competitor. If found guilty, OpenAI could be ordered to pay US$150 billion.
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When the trial began the week of April 27, it seemed as if a veritable circus had come to town. Outside the courthouse, a member of the Stop AI protest group held a huge cardboard cutout of Musk wearing a swimsuit. The image had no intention of favoring him.
Another group took an inflatable doll like those used in dealerships desperate to attract attention, with the words “Elon Sucks” printed in white letters. One woman took a more balanced stance in her handwritten sign: “Musk x Altman: Everyone Sucks Here.”
Not everyone, however, was there to criticize them. I spoke to some local college students who rushed to the courthouse to catch a reverent glimpse of Musk. The court provided 30 unreserved seats inside the courtroom every day, and anyone who wanted to secure one of them needed to arrive well before the building opened at 7am, or risk being sent to a broadcast room.
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A woman dressed in black spent every morning in the building’s courtyard taking selfies while puffing on a vape. She attempted to photograph Musk in the courthouse hallway, but was caught by federal agents and later reprimanded by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers for violating rules prohibiting recordings in the building. The agent forced the woman to delete the photos.
Others present were clearly there for the entertainment. An older gentleman in the audience once took off his shoes before eating the lunch he had brought. An agent ended up whispering to him: “You’re not in your living room.”
Musk and Altman convinced the court to allow them to enter the building through the garage, avoiding the crowd pressed against the glass at the main entrance. Not all of the tech elite received the same privilege; Brockman entered through the front door, as did Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member and mother of four of Musk’s children.
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The tech titans were, for the most part, well-behaved and well-dressed. (Musk in a black suit, while Altman and Brockman opted for softer shades of blue.) Musk and Altman barely interacted with each other, except for occasional exchanges of cool glances.
During his testimony, Musk presented himself to the nine-person jury as a bold entrepreneur whose main concern is the survival of the human race. “We want a Gene Roddenberry-style result, like in ‘Star Trek,’” he said of responsible AI development. “And not so much something like a James Cameron movie, like ‘The Terminator’.”
At other times, Musk showed visible irritation with William Savitt, OpenAI’s lawyer. Musk, who at one point described himself as an “extremely literal person,” said Savitt’s questions were “misleading” and “designed to mislead him.” When he responded sarcastically, some younger men in the audience laughed and seemed to quietly approve of the provocation.
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Altman was more restrained. He spent the first three days of the trial in the front row of the audience, alongside Brockman and Joshua Achiam, whose role at OpenAI is to address AI safety issues. (It was probably no coincidence that, at a trial about the possible dangers of AI, Achiam was seated prominently.)
During Musk’s testimony, Brockman scribbled pages and pages of notes with a red pen on a legal pad, a personal record keeping habit that he said began 16 years ago. Paradoxically, his old professional journals were being used against him as evidence at trial, something Brockman said was “very painful.”
Altman often stared straight ahead and sometimes fidgeted in his seat, perhaps bothered by Musk’s less-than-generous view of OpenAI or by seven hours of sitting on the hard wood of the court bench.
Some of Musk’s allies arrived prepared. Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood super agent and CEO of WME Group, as well as Musk’s confidant, appeared as part of the billionaire’s entourage, accompanied by a security guard carrying a green Harrods bag containing two soft, cream-colored pillows. (The cardboard cutout photo of Musk used by protesters? It was taken by paparazzi a few years earlier, when the billionaire was spending the summer with Emanuel on a superyacht near the Greek island of Mykonos.)
Emanuel, who came from Los Angeles to attend the trial, wore the typical blue windbreaker that billionaires wear to Allen & Co.’s annual technology and media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. He talked a lot with journalists in the corridors during breaks between testimonies. To me, however, he did not speak; Emanuel ignored three of my attempts to talk about the case.
Most of the witnesses didn’t seem particularly happy to be there. Under questioning from OpenAI’s lawyers, Zilis gave short answers, adding occasional sarcastic comments. Mira Murati, former chief technology officer at OpenAI, didn’t even attend; the week her videotaped testimony was shown in court, she was across the country in New York attending the Met Gala.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement of journalistic content related to AI systems. Both companies have denied the allegations.)
With about a week of testimony remaining before jury deliberations, the carnival atmosphere outside the courtroom has subsided. The lines shortened, the protest balloons deflated.
But there are still more revelations ahead. Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella are expected to testify this week. And on Wednesday last week, lawyers released a series of text messages exchanged between OpenAI executives during one of the company’s most chaotic periods, when Altman was briefly fired by the board in 2023.
At the time, OpenAI leaders maintained a firm public stance. But the messages showed what was happening behind the scenes. In an exchange between Altman and Murati — which would later describe the attempt to stabilize the company in the face of a possible collapse — he peppered her with questions about her chances of remaining CEO of OpenAI.
“Sam, this is really bad,” she wrote.
c.2026 The New York Times Company
