As the legal battle between Elon Musk and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI kicked off on Monday, April 27, the Tesla CEO has launched fresh attacks against CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman. In a post on OpenAI was founded in 2015 by a group including Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, and John Schulman as a non-profit organization. Musk filed a lawsuit in November 2024 alleging the company betrayed its original mission. Withdrawing the case in the same year, Musk revived the action in early 2026. The case went on trial yesterday with the appointment of a nine-person jury.
What Elon Musk wrote on
Sharing a post on X, Elon Musk wrote: “Scam Altman and Greg Stockman stole a charity. Full stop. Greg got tens of billions of stock for himself and Scam got dozens of OpenAI side deals with a piece of the action for himself, Y Combinator style. After this lawsuit, Scam will also be awarded tens of billions in stock directly. The fundamental question is simply this: Do you want to set legal precedent in the United States that it is ok to loot a charity? If so, you undermine all charitable giving in the United States forever.I could have started OpenAI as a for-profit corporation. Instead, I started it, funded it, recruited critical talent and taught them everything I know about how to make a startup successful FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD.Then they stole the charity.”In a separate post, Musk wrote that OpenAI is built on a lie.
Elon Musk seeks $150 billion in damages
Under the lawsuit, Musk is seeking $150 billion in damages, according to a person involved in the case, with proceeds going to OpenAI’s charitable arm.OpenAI has pushed back hard, calling the lawsuit a distraction driven by competitive jealousy. They have pointed out that Musk is now building a rival AI company called xAI, which competes directly with OpenAI, and this trial is one of the ways he wants to block the success of the ChatGPT-maker. The trial is expected to be one of the most closely watched legal battles in Silicon Valley history.
