Musk vs. Altman: A High-Stakes A.I. Clash Goes to Court
Elon Musk is seeking more than $150 billion in damages and a complete shake-up of OpenAI. The outcome could have big consequences for the artificial intelligence industry.
The trial of the artificial intelligence age, a legal battle between Elon Musk and OpenAI, is set to begin Monday in a courtroom in Oakland, Calif.
But while much of the attention is on the juicy details about OpenAI’s back story, what matters most is what the outcome might mean for the future of the A.I. industry.
The fight promises lots of dirt. Musk’s lawsuit accuses OpenAI, which the billionaire co-founded with Sam Altman and others in 2015 as a nonprofit A.I. research lab, of betraying its original mission. OpenAI argues that Musk, who left in 2018, had wanted to control the organization (and had also sought to commercialize it).
Legal discovery in the case has already unearthed titillating details involving a wide cast of characters, including Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member and the mother of several of Musk’s children; Mark Zuckerberg of Meta; Satya Nadella of Microsoft; and Jared Birchall, a longtime Musk lieutenant. Some are scheduled to testify.
Musk is asking for stiff penalties. They include more than $150 billion in damages; the removal of Altman and another OpenAI co-founder, Greg Brockman, from their leadership roles; and a return of OpenAI to a fully nonprofit status.
The A.I. sector has changed a lot since the dispute began. OpenAI isn’t a research lab dependent on Musk’s money anymore: It’s a $730 billion behemoth that has raised hundreds of billions of dollars from an array of tech giants.
Yet Musk is a formidable A.I. competitor, too. He raised billions for his xAI lab, then had his SpaceX buy it at a $250 billion valuation. SpaceX has since agreed to potentially buy the A.I. coding start-up Cursor for $60 billion.
The A.I. industry doesn’t just revolve around Musk’s and Altman’s businesses, either.
Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI executives, has soared in popularity among the all-important corporate crowd. And its powerful latest model, Claude Mythos Preview, has scared many with its perceived potential for harm.
Google, the A.I. competitor Musk has long worried about, has made its Gemini model highly capable. It’s expected to announce even more powerful A.I. tools at its developer conference next month.
Other competitors, like DeepSeek of China, are making potent models — available free of charge.
The stakes: A Musk win could deal OpenAI a potentially serious blow. An OpenAI win could permit Altman to run the company more freely. But it’s unlikely to give either side a decisive edge in an industry that in some ways has outgrown their fight.