SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 It\u2019s a trial so unusual, not even artificial intelligence could make it up.<\/p>\n
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Jury selection begins Monday in a federal courtroom in Oakland, California, in a civil trial that features one tech billionaire, Elon Musk, suing another, Sam Altman. The case is one part business dispute and one part highly personal grudge match \u2014 and it could determine the future of red-hot startup OpenAI and its signature app, ChatGPT.<\/p>\n
The trial is scheduled to run for four weeks, with a cast of prominent tech executives set to testify. Witnesses are expected to include not only Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, but possibly also Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and current and former OpenAI board members, as well as top AI researchers.<\/p>\n
\u201cBillionaires versus billionaires,\u201d observed Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over the case, in a hearing<\/a> last year in Oakland, just across San Francisco Bay from OpenAI\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n At the heart of the case is OpenAI\u2019s transformation from a nonprofit research center founded in 2015 into a for-profit behemoth, now with billions of dollars in outside investment<\/a>. Altman and Musk were the founding co-chairs<\/a> of OpenAI.<\/p>\n OpenAI completed a restructuring<\/a> in October, with the for-profit organization still reporting to a nonprofit foundation. <\/p>\n Musk, who now has a rival AI startup, xAI, says the transformation away from nonprofit status was a betrayal. He alleges<\/a> that Altman and others accepted his money, advice and time under the pretense of creating a public-spirited enterprise only to later allow people to cash in. Musk sued Altman and a long list of other co-defendants<\/a> in 2024, demanding restitution that he later estimated at $134 billion.<\/p>\n Altman\u2019s side counters that Musk is rewriting history. They argue<\/a> Musk left OpenAI in a huff in 2018 and never gave the full $1 billion he pledged. They also say Musk agreed with them years ago about the need to convert OpenAI into a for-profit company in order to raise capital \u2014 only they say Musk wanted OpenAI for himself and argued for folding it into his automaker, Tesla.<\/p>\n Both sides appear to relish the chance to prove themselves correct.<\/p>\n \u201cCan\u2019t wait to start the trial. The discovery and testimony will blow your mind,\u201d Musk posted in January<\/a> on X, which he owns.<\/p>\n \u201cReally excited to get Elon under oath in a few months, Christmas in April!\u201d Altman said in February<\/a>, also on X.<\/p>\n The two men are similar in a few ways. They\u2019re both tech billionaires with a keen interest in AI who have built massive companies in the Bay Area. They share a love of posting on X and have become household names<\/a> through their business success and media profiles.<\/p>\n But they also have sharp differences. Musk, 54, is nearly a generation older than Altman, 41. Musk is active in far-right Republican politics<\/a>, while Altman is a conflicted longtime Democratic donor who last year called himself \u201cpolitically homeless<\/a>\u201d and gave $1 million<\/a> to President Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration. Altman is a booster for San Francisco, advising its mayor<\/a> and expanding OpenAI\u2019s offices here, while Musk shuns the city and now lives in Texas.<\/p>\n Musk is also vastly wealthier, with a $645 billion net worth that makes him the richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg<\/a>. With SpaceX\u2019s expected IPO later this year, Musk could become the world\u2019s first trillionaire.<\/p>\n The souring of their relationship has at times bordered on the petty and personal. Musk has repeatedly<\/a> posted on X about \u201cScam Altman,\u201d while Altman publicly demanded back his $45,000 deposit<\/a> for a Tesla Roadster, Musk\u2019s long-delayed<\/a> sports car.<\/p>\n The timing only adds to the trial\u2019s drama: OpenAI is locked in a heated battle with Anthropic and Google for leadership in the AI market, trying to get both consumers and business customers hooked on chatbots and other AI tools, while public anger over AI<\/a> continues to simmer as evidenced by a recent attack on Altman\u2019s home<\/a>.<\/p>\n The trial has the potential to radically upend OpenAI if the jury and judge agree with Musk. In a court filing<\/a> in January, Musk said he planned to ask for $134 billion from OpenAI and Microsoft, which is one of OpenAI\u2019s top backers and a co-defendant in the trial. Musk amended that proposal in a second filing<\/a> this month, saying instead that any funds disgorged from OpenAI and its executives should go to OpenAI\u2019s charitable arm. He also said he\u2019d ask the judge to order the firing of Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, along with a permanent injunction to preserve OpenAI\u2019s original charter. OpenAI called those proposed outcomes a \u201clegal ambush<\/a>\u201d on the eve of trial.<\/p>\n Musk says he gave OpenAI $38 million<\/a> during its early years, or what he says was 60% of the nonprofit\u2019s seed funding.<\/p>\n Unlike in some other trials, the jury in the case is advisory, meaning the judge will consider their verdict but ultimately make the decision herself about liability. She also said in an order this month<\/a> that she alone would decide the remedy, without the advice of a jury, if the trial gets that far.<\/p>\n The tech industry has been salivating over the upcoming trial, not only because of what it might mean for OpenAI but also because of the juicy gossip<\/a> it has produced. Among the documents that have been unsealed as part of the case are Brockman\u2019s personal notes in which he mused about wanting to become a billionaire<\/a>. In a 2016 email that surfaced in the case, Musk wrote to Altman saying OpenAI should work with Microsoft as a cloud-computing provider instead of with Amazon because Musk considered Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to be \u201ca bit of a tool<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Traders on the prediction market site Polymarket were giving Musk 32% odds of success<\/a> as of Friday, after weeks of volatile price swings.<\/p>\n The judge, due to her proximity to Silicon Valley, already has years of experience dealing with wealthy tech companies and their high-priced legal teams. Last year, she ruled that Apple had violated a court order in an antitrust case and referred the iPhone maker to federal prosecutors for possible criminal prosecution<\/a>. (Prosecutors declined to comment Friday on the status of the referral.)<\/p>\n She has already taken a strict approach to the Musk-Altman case. In an order last year<\/a>, she warned the parties that they had \u201cover-litigated this case\u201d with excessive or irrelevant arguments.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Court will not waste precious judicial resources on the parties\u2019 gamesmanship,\u201d Rogers wrote.<\/p>\n For the trial, she has ordered everyone \u2014 billionaires included \u2014 to enter the courthouse through the regular front door and go through security screenings. \u201cThat some of the parties and witnesses may have high profiles does not warrant special privileges,\u201d she wrote in an order<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n Musk requested a jury trial, and the judge said she\u2019ll seat nine advisory jurors with no alternates. They\u2019ll be drawn from San Francisco and several surrounding counties<\/a>, an area that includes many tech workers as well as critics of the industry and AI.<\/p>\n In February, a federal judge in San Francisco overseeing a different trial involving Musk had difficulty finding jurors<\/a> who could set aside their views about the billionaire and keep an open mind.<\/p>\n One potential juror in that case said Musk had \u201cno moral compass\u201d and was excused, while a lawyer for Musk complained to the judge that there were \u201cso many people who hate him so much,\u201d the news site Law360 reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 It\u2019s a trial so unusual, not even artificial intelligence could make it up. 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