Tech
Elon Musk vs. Sam Altman: The Trial That Will Decide OpenAI's Soul
Musk testifies that OpenAI's founders 'stole a charity,' as the tech world watches a legal battle over whether the AI giant betrayed its non-profit mission.
Elon Musk’s attorney, Steven Molo, told a federal court in Oakland, California, on April 28 that OpenAI’s founders “stole a charity,” according to the Financial Times. Musk himself testified that “fundamentally, I think they’re going to try to make this lawsuit…very complicated, but it’s actually very simple.” The trial, before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, will decide whether the company behind ChatGPT betrayed its non-profit founding mission or simply evolved to survive in a capital-intensive industry.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a non-profit dedicated to developing artificial general intelligence for humanity’s benefit. He left the board in 2018. By 2019, OpenAI had created a for-profit subsidiary to raise capital, a shift that the original non-profit board approved. Musk’s lawsuit, first filed in 2024 and later refiled, argues that CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman “exploited” the non-profit’s assets by effectively transferring control. The defense counters that the shift was necessary and disclosed, and that Musk supported a for-profit model before his departure. The trial will examine documents and testimony from 2018 and 2019 to decide which story holds, per the Financial Times.
The case arrives during a period of corporate rearrangement. OpenAI recently signed a new agreement with Microsoft that grants the startup greater independence, as reported by the Financial Times. The details remain under seal, but the partnership sets OpenAI on a path toward an eventual IPO that could value it among the most valuable technology companies in the world. The company’s most recent disclosed valuation is $852 billion, from a $122 billion April 2026 round co-led by SoftBank. OpenAI has also faced revenue shortfalls against internal projections, though the exact amounts have not been disclosed.
Outside the courtroom, the business continues. OpenAI is expected to file its IPO prospectus later this year. A ruling against Altman would not necessarily dissolve the company, but it could force a restructuring that complicates going public, the Financial Times notes.
The trial is expected to last several weeks. Musk, Altman, and Brockman are all scheduled to testify, alongside current and former board members. Watch for testimony from the November 2023 board coup that fired and reinstated Altman, which directly touches on governance disputes. The IPO filing window opens in the second half of this year. A ruling for Musk would require OpenAI to unwind its for-profit structure or pay damages. A ruling for Altman would clear the path to a public offering but leave the opening for future challenges to the non-profit conversion.
References
- https://www.wsj.com/tech/trial-begins-between-elon-musk-and-sam-altman-for-the-future-of-openai-01595967 — wsj.com (accessed 2026-04-28)
- OpenAI’s Altman ‘stole a charity’, Musk claims as trial begins — FT (accessed 2026-04-28)
- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz027nyz529o — bbc.com (accessed 2026-04-28)
- https://apnews.com/article/musk-altman-trial-openai-2026-04-28 — apnews.com (accessed 2026-04-28)
- An Interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and AWS CEO Matt Garman About Bedrock Managed Agents — Stratechery (accessed 2026-04-28)
Editor's notes — what this article still gets wrong
Where it lands
The closing outcome map works. Translating "ruling for Musk" and "ruling for Altman" into specific business consequences -- forced restructuring versus cleared IPO path -- gives readers a practical frame without oversimplifying the legal picture.
Where it falls short
The defense claim that Musk "supported a for-profit model before his departure" is presented as a bare assertion with no note of what evidence supports it. That is the crux of the dispute, not background. Separately, the second source (a Stratechery interview about AWS Bedrock Managed Agents) appears nowhere in the article. It reads as a sourcing artifact from a cut draft rather than a citation to anything actually used.
What it didn't answer
The article never names the legal theory Musk is actually litigating -- charitable trust violation, breach of fiduciary duty, something else. Without that, readers cannot evaluate what he would need to prove or how strong the case actually is. The conflict-of-interest question (Musk now runs xAI, a direct competitor) also goes entirely unaddressed, which is a fair thing for a skeptical reader to raise.