Sam Altman took the witness stand on May 12, 2026 in a lawsuit brought by Elon Musk that accuses Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman of betraying the lab’s founding nonprofit mission. Musk is asking a court to remove Altman as CEO and seek up to $180 billion in damages tied in part to payments allegedly routed from the nonprofit to OpenAI’s for‑profit operations; a ruling could reshape the company’s leadership and finances.
Altman denied the central claim that Musk opposed converting parts of OpenAI into a for‑profit structure, testifying “Quite the opposite.” He told the court that Musk initially demanded an outsized stake — an “early number... that he should have 90% of the equity to start”—a proposal that later softened but still amounted to a push for majority control. Altman also testified that Musk ranked engineers in ways that damaged research culture and related an uncomfortable remark in which Musk suggested passing the company to his children after his death.
OpenAI has characterized the suit as motivated in part by rivalry after Musk founded xAI, calling the complaint an act of revenge in a market where Musk is now a competitor. During the trial, court documents and emails were entered into evidence showing Musk resigned from OpenAI in 2018, saying he had lost faith the lab would be a “serious counterweight” to Google’s DeepMind. Those materials were presented to the jury amid cross‑examination by Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo.
Beyond damages and leadership changes, the case centers on the governance relationship between OpenAI’s nonprofit and for‑profit arms and on competing accounts of the company’s culture. Altman rebutted accusations that he fostered a “toxic culture of lying,” insisted he had been honest, and said his 2023 removal from the board stemmed from misunderstandings and a breakdown of trust rather than deliberate deception.
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