Elon Musk's 7 biggest stumbles on the stand at OpenAI trial
Elon Musk seems tired and cranky. On Thursday, he took the stand for the third day in a four-week trial stemming from his lawsuit alleging that OpenAI abandoned its mission and should be blocked from taking the company public later this year. If Musk plays his cards right, Sam Altman could be ousted and OpenAI would remain a nonprofit forever.
But Musk stumbled at least seven times in ways that possibly put his chances at winning in jeopardy. Most notable, 1) OpenAI’s lawyer managed to get him to make several concessions over his own lawyer’s objections. 2) He also lost a fight to keep xAI’s safety record off the table, calling his reputation as a supposed AI savior defending OpenAI’s mission into question. 3) He repeatedly appeared dishonest, as OpenAI’s lawyer showed documents contradicting his testimony. And he twice appeared disingenuous, 4) first when confronted with calling OpenAI’s safety team “jackasses,” 5) and then again when admitting that he didn’t know what “safety cards” are, even though his own AI firm issues them. Perhaps most embarrassing, 6) he testified that he never loses his temper before raising his voice at OpenAI’s lawyer. And finally, 7) his lawyers failed to keep his ties to Donald Trump off the record, with the judge agreeing to hear discussions that might further discredit Musk’s testimony.
Musk faced Altman while testifying
Since he was called as the trial’s first witness, Musk has spent more than seven hours over the past two days testifying that OpenAI made a “fool” out of him. He repeatedly claimed that OpenAI executives “stole a charity” after accepting $38 million in donations. Musk insists he was conned into giving “free funding” to start a nonprofit that Altman supposedly always intended to turn into an $800 billion company—not for the benefit of humanity, but to enrich Altman and his co-conspirators.
On the other side, Altman and OpenAI—along with Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest investor—have argued that Musk is merely jealous. He walked away from OpenAI and now, his own AI company, xAI, lags behind OpenAI. As OpenAI defends its founders and their plan for an initial public offering in the last quarter of 2026, they claim that Musk filed the litigation in a desperate move to slow down his biggest rival so that his firm can catch up. Further, Musk is accused of using the litigation as part of a harassment campaign trolling Altman.
