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Musk Ends Testimony in OpenAI Trial After Sparring Over Nonprofit Claims

• By John K. Waters
• 05/01/2026

Elon Musk concluded three days of testimony on Thursday in his lawsuit against OpenAI, as lawyers for the ChatGPT maker sought to challenge his claim that the company improperly abandoned its nonprofit roots.

Musk, who co-founded OpenAI and helped fund it in its early years, is suing OpenAI, Chief Executive Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, and other defendants over the company’s evolution from a nonprofit research lab into a business with a large for-profit arm. Associated Press reported that Musk sparred with OpenAI attorney William Savitt during cross-examination in federal court in Oakland.

The case centers on Musk’s allegation that OpenAI betrayed its founding mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. OpenAI has denied wrongdoing and argued that Musk was aware of or supported moves toward a for-profit structure before later becoming a competitor through his own AI company, xAI.

On Thursday, Savitt pressed Musk on whether OpenAI’s structure violated its nonprofit commitments if investor profits were capped. ABC7 Bay Area reported that Musk said the answer depended on how high the cap was and that he reiterated his view that OpenAI had strayed from its nonprofit purpose.

The courtroom exchanges also showed the limits of what U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers was willing to allow. The Guardian reported that the judge cut off Musk’s comments about catastrophic AI risks, making clear that the trial is focused on OpenAI’s corporate transformation rather than a broader debate over the dangers of artificial intelligence.

Other local coverage similarly reported that the judge warned Musk not to turn the proceedings into a trial over AI extinction scenarios. SFGate reported that Musk had raised concerns about AI’s potential danger to humanity, but that Gonzalez Rogers said the case was about Musk’s allegations concerning OpenAI’s nonprofit mission.

A separate line of questioning focused on xAI, Musk’s competing artificial intelligence company. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Musk testified that xAI had partly used OpenAI technology to train its models, in questioning about distillation, a technique in which one model is trained from another model’s outputs.

The Chronicle also reported that Musk acknowledged there were no documents barring OpenAI from creating a for-profit arm or setting out the terms of his roughly $38 million in donations. The Guardian reported that Jared Birchall, a longtime Musk adviser, testified after Musk about financial matters connected to Musk’s early support for OpenAI.

The trial is being closely watched because it could affect OpenAI’s governance and commercial plans at a time when the company is one of the most influential players in artificial intelligence. CourtListener identifies the case as Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, assigned to Gonzalez Rogers.
 
The proceedings have also underscored the unusual relationship between Musk and OpenAI. Musk helped launch the organization in 2015, later left it, and now competes with it through xAI. OpenAI has argued that Musk’s lawsuit is an attempt to hinder a rival, while Musk has framed the case as an effort to restore OpenAI’s original charitable purpose.

No ruling was issued Thursday. The day’s testimony instead gave OpenAI’s lawyers an opportunity to press Musk on his earlier understanding of OpenAI’s structure, his current competitive interests, and the legal basis for his claim that the company’s move toward a for-profit model violated its founding purpose.