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

Cade Metz and Mike Isaac, reporting for The New York Times from the Ronald V. Dellums U.S. Courthouse in Oakland (gift link):

On the first day of testimony in a landmark trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, two notably different tales were offered of how OpenAI evolved from a nonprofit artificial intelligence lab into one of the most influential tech companies in the world.

In Mr. Musk’s telling, OpenAI’s shift was one of the greatest heists in history — a nonprofit ripped from its promise of altruism by the greed of Mr. Altman, who founded OpenAI with Mr. Musk and a group of A.I. researchers more than 10 years ago. In OpenAI’s recounting of those early days, however, it was Mr. Musk who was the voracious capitalist. And when the lab’s other founders refused to go along with his plans, he left in a huff.

“This lawsuit is very simple: It is not OK to steal a charity,” Mr. Musk said Tuesday on the witness stand in an Oakland, Calif., courtroom. If Mr. Altman and OpenAI are allowed to continue with their plans, he added, “It will give license to looting every charity in America.”

A nine-member jury, seated a day earlier in federal court by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, will hear from tech moguls, former OpenAI board members and employees in what is expected to be a monthlong trial. The jurors’ decision could shift the balance of power among A.I. companies, with Mr. Musk seeking $150 billion in damages and an order that OpenAI, now valued at about $730 billion, unwind its for-profit plans.

Gonzales Rogers, you will surely remember, presided over the Epic v. Apple case.

Isaac is live-tweeting the testimony and goings-on on Twitter/X. Here’s his thread of posts yesterday. Isaac is a terrific reporter, and I enjoy following his extemporaneous notes. It’s a little weird though that he’s posting these on Twitter/X, a site that is privately owned by one of the parties in the lawsuit. Musk’s empire is so sprawling that separate pieces inevitably collide.

★ Wednesday, 29 April 2026