OpenAI Trial Starts With Two Very Different Tales of a Company’s Early Years

```json { "title": "Musk vs. Altman OpenAI Trial Begins: Day One", "metaDescription": "The Musk vs. Altman OpenAI trial opened April 28, 2026 in Oakland. Here's what happened on Day One, from opening statements to Musk's testimony.", "content": "<h2>Musk vs. Altman OpenAI Trial Kicks Off in Oakland With Dueling Narratives</h2><p>The long-anticipated civil trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI's Sam Altman formally got underway on April 28, 2026, at the U.S. District Court in Oakland, California — and from the very first hours, the two sides offered starkly different accounts of how one of the world's most powerful artificial intelligence companies came to be, and who betrayed whom along the way. Musk himself took the stand as the first witness called, making for an extraordinary opening day in what could become a landmark case for the future of AI governance.</p><p>Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is presiding over the proceedings. A nine-person advisory jury — advisory because the case is being tried in equity rather than at law — was seated on April 27, 2026. Judge Gonzalez Rogers will issue the binding ruling but has indicated she will weigh the jury's recommendations. The trial is expected to last approximately three weeks.</p><h2>Opening Statements Draw Battle Lines</h2><p>Musk's attorney, Steven Molo, opened with a blunt accusation directed at Altman, Greg Brockman, and Microsoft: that they had taken a public charity and turned it into a private wealth machine.</p><p>"Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today because the defendants in this case stole a charity," Molo told the jury. He went on to argue that Musk was the driving force behind OpenAI's creation, stating: "Without Elon Musk there would be no OpenAI, pure and simple." Molo claimed Musk contributed approximately $38 million to the nonprofit over roughly five years — court documents cited by CNN and NPR put his total contributions at at least $44 million. In Molo's telling, the defendants took that foundation and enriched themselves at the public's expense. "They enriched themselves, they made themselves more powerful, and they breached the very basic principles on which the charity was founded," he said.</p><p>OpenAI's lead attorney, William Savitt, offered a sharply different framing. Rather than a story of betrayal, Savitt argued the lawsuit is the product of a founder who didn't get the control he wanted and has been attempting to sabotage a competitor ever since. "We are here because Mr. Musk didn't get his way at OpenAI," Savitt said in his opening. He further argued that Musk had initially supported the idea of making OpenAI a for-profit entity, and that the other founders declined to hand Musk control of the company in 2017, in part because, according to Savitt as reported by the SF Standard, "he didn't really understand artificial intelligence very well." Savitt told the jury: "What he cares about is Elon Musk being at the top."</p><p>OpenAI has also posted a statement from its official newsroom account calling the litigation "a baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor."</p><p>Microsoft, named as a co-defendant in the suit, had its own attorney in the courtroom. Russell Cohen, a lawyer for Microsoft, argued in his opening statement that Musk's claims exceeded the statute of limitations, pointing to a post Musk himself made on X in September 2020 in which he wrote that "OpenAI is essentially captured by Microsoft" — an indication, Cohen argued, that Musk was aware of the alleged breach years before filing suit in 2024.</p><h2>Musk Takes the Stand: Founding Charter at Center of Case</h2><p>With Musk serving as the first witness, his attorney entered into evidence OpenAI's founding charter from 2015, which declared that OpenAI would seek to create "open source technology for the public benefit" and that it was "not organized for the private gain of any person." Musk testified that this language was foundational to his involvement and his financial contributions.</p><p>"I came up with the idea, the name, recruited the key people, taught them everything I know, provided all the initial funding," Musk said from the witness stand. He testified that the organization was always meant to operate differently from a traditional tech company: "It was specifically meant to be for a charity that did not benefit any individual person."</p><p>Speaking briefly outside the courthouse, Musk also addressed what he expects the defense's strategy to be: "Fundamentally, I think they're going to try to make this lawsuit...very complicated, but it's actually very simple."</p><p>The trial also surfaced a 2023 email exchange between Musk and Altman that had been submitted as evidence. In one message, Altman told Musk he was his "hero" but expressed that he had been hurt by Musk's public attacks on OpenAI. Musk's reply, now part of the trial record, read: "I hear you and it is certainly not my intention to be hurtful, for which I apologize, but the fate of civilization is at stake."</p><h2>What's Actually at Stake: The Two Surviving Claims</h2><p>Of the 26 claims Musk originally filed in 2024, only two are proceeding to trial: unjust enrichment and breach of charitable trust. The scope of what Musk is asking for, however, is sweeping. According to NPR, he is seeking a rollback of OpenAI's for-profit conversion, the removal of Altman as a director of OpenAI's nonprofit board, and the removal of both Altman and Brockman as officers of the for-profit company. He also wants Altman, Brockman, and Microsoft to "disgorge" what his attorneys described in January 2026 as up to $134 billion in alleged wrongful gains — funds he has since said should be redirected back into OpenAI's charitable arm rather than paid to him personally.</p><p>Microsoft's role in the lawsuit is significant. According to CNBC, Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019 and is named as a defendant on the theory that its investments and partnerships enabled the alleged breach of charitable trust. Musk's attorney noted in his opening that Microsoft's initial investment in OpenAI was $2 billion, according to reporting from the Boston Globe and Baltimore Sun.</p><h2>Context: A Nonprofit That Became a $852 Billion Company</h2><p>OpenAI was established in 2015 by Musk, Altman, Brockman, and others as a nonprofit explicitly dedicated to developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, free from the pressures of shareholders and private profit. Musk departed the company's board in 2018 after what CNN describes as "an acrimonious power struggle."</p><p>A year after his exit, in 2019, OpenAI created a for-profit subsidiary to attract outside investment. In 2025, the company restructured further, becoming a for-profit public benefit corporation operating under the OpenAI Foundation. Those structural changes — and the enormous wealth they generated — are the core of Musk's complaint.</p><p>The financial stakes of the case are difficult to overstate. Court documents cited by NPR and AP put OpenAI's current valuation at $852 billion. The company says it has nearly 1 billion weekly active users and recently closed a $122 billion funding round. According to NPR, the Wall Street Journal has reported that OpenAI is planning an IPO potentially later this year — a move that would make the question of its legal structure and obligations even more consequential.</p><p>Musk's expert witnesses include Stuart J. Russell, a science professor and AI researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and David M. Schizer, a Columbia Law professor, dean emeritus, and tax scholar, according to CNBC. Key witnesses expected to appear over the course of the trial include Altman, Brockman, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.</p><h2>What Comes Next</h2><p>The trial is expected to continue for approximately three weeks. With Musk's direct testimony underway, cross-examination by OpenAI's and Microsoft's legal teams is expected to follow. Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Satya Nadella are all listed as witnesses, meaning the trial will bring together some of the most powerful figures in the technology industry under oath.</p><p>Because Judge Gonzalez Rogers will issue the binding ruling rather than the jury, the legal arguments around equitable remedies — whether a court can actually unwind OpenAI's for-profit conversion, force disgorgement of billions of dollars, or remove sitting executives — will ultimately be decided by the bench. The advisory jury's recommendations will be part of that calculus, but the final word rests with the judge.</p><p>For the AI industry more broadly, the outcome could establish meaningful precedent around how nonprofit AI organizations can lawfully transition to for-profit structures, and what obligations founders and early donors retain over time. OpenAI's planned IPO adds further urgency: a ruling against the company could complicate or derail that process entirely.</p><p>For more tech news, visit our <a href=\"/news\">news section</a>.</p><h2>What This Means for Your Work and Focus</h2><p>The Musk vs. Altman trial is more than a courtroom drama between billionaires — it's a public reckoning over who controls the AI tools that are increasingly shaping how we work, make decisions, and manage our time and attention. As AI platforms built on OpenAI's technology become embedded in productivity workflows, the legal and structural questions being argued in Oakland have real downstream effects on the products you use every day. Staying informed about these shifts is part of working smarter in an AI-driven world. Join the <a href=\"/#waitlist\">Moccet waitlist</a> to stay ahead of the curve.</p>", "excerpt": "The civil trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI's Sam Altman opened April 28, 2026 in Oakland, California, with Musk taking the stand as the first witness. Competing opening statements framed the case as either a brazen theft of a public charity or a vindictive power grab by a spurned co-founder. The trial, expected to last three weeks, could reshape the legal landscape for AI governance.", "keywords": ["OpenAI trial", "Elon Musk vs Sam Altman", "OpenAI nonprofit conversion", "Musk Altman lawsuit", "AI governance"], "slug": "musk-vs-altman-openai-trial-day-one-2026" } ```