Key players at OpenAI, a small nonprofit research lab at the time, convened in late August 2017 to explore how they would establish a for-profit company to sell their technology and raise the capital required to accomplish AGI.
Elon Musk had just delivered a Tesla Model 3 to each of his co-founders and was seeking complete control of the business. At a time when Musk and Sam Altman were fighting for support for their different ideas of the company’s future, CTO Greg Brockman said he saw that as a means to warm them up. Ilya Sutskever, the chief of research at OpenAI, had commissioned a painting of a Tesla to be given to Musk as a courtesy during the meeting.
The conversation did not follow that tone: Brockman claimed that Musk became irate and outraged when he was informed that the others would not comply with his desire for control of the corporation. He sat and thought in silence for a few minutes.
Then, according to Brockman, Musk answered, “I decline.” The creator of Tesla and SpaceX “up and raged around the table…I was afraid he might hit me. He began to rage out of the room after grabbing the painting. “When will you be departing OpenAI?” he asked after turning around.
Neither Brockman nor Sutskever committed to Musk’s vision or left. Although he paid for the office space the firm shared with Neuralink until 2020, Musk stopped making regular contributions to the company’s operating budget and left the board after six months.
As the current legal dispute over OpenAI’s future continues, attention has focused on a pivotal moment in 2017 when the company’s original co-founders couldn’t agree on who would be in charge of its future, leading to Musk’s lawsuit against his co-founders.
Sam Altman has not yet been heard, but Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, testified for two days, frequently citing a personal journal that provides a unique perspective on what it’s like to be a thirty-year-old tech executive engaged in a fierce conflict with Elon Musk.
Regarding the publicity around the journal, which he described as “deeply personal writings that were never meant for the world to see,” Brockman stated, “It’s very painful.” I’m not ashamed of anything, though.
Seldom are ruthless negotiations between startup founders made so public, particularly when a business like OpenAI has the potential to change the world.
A recent example of this animosity was revealed by OpenAI’s attorneys, who provided a text message that Musk wrote to Brockman two days prior to the start of the trial: “By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America.” It will be if you insist.
Although the jury won’t see that message, Musk’s attorneys have made every effort to capture its essence. While OpenAI’s legal team attempts to demonstrate that Musk had the same strategy in mind, they are attempting to convince the court that Altman and Brockman “stole a charity.”
The OpenAI model’s victory over the best human player in the video game DOTA II catalyzed all of this. According to Brockman, he persuaded all of the organization’s members that computing was the essential resource for developing potent AI tools, but that nonprofit fundraising alone would not be enough.
This sparked discussions regarding a for-profit company, of which Musk first desired “unequivocal” control. Equal shares and possibly greater stock in line with a cash investment were suggested by the other founders. Connecting OpenAI in some way to Tesla’s AI efforts was another possibility that was discussed. There were almost 20 iterations of the proposal, according to Shivon Zilis, an OpenAI advisor who served as a liaison between Musk and the team there.
However, their collaboration fell apart when the other founders refused to grant Musk authority.
According to Brockman’s testimony, “it should not be the case that there exists one person with full and absolute control over OpenAI.” Musk’s attorneys have concentrated on the November 2017 journal entries that resulted from Brockman and Sutskever’s discussion of a proposal to remove Elon from OpenAI’s board in order to proceed.
Brockman remarked, “I can’t see us turning this into a for-profit without a very nasty fight.” We’re in the office, and I’m just thinking about it. And his tale will accurately be that we were dishonest with him in the end about still wanting to continue the business for profit, just without him. By the way, another insight from this is that stealing the non-profit from him and turning it into a B-Corp without him would be immoral. And he’s not actually that stupid.
The context, according to Brockman, was whether or not to attempt to remove Musk from the board, even though the phrase “steal the non-profit” may seem incriminating. In the end, they didn’t do it. In February 2018, Musk voluntarily resigned from the board, stating that “OpenAI is on a path of certain failure” and that he intended to concentrate more on AI at Tesla.
According to Brockman, his introspection was an attempt to ascertain whether he would be content with his career.
He wrote throughout the conversations, “This is the only chance we have to get out of Elon.” Is he the “glorious leader” I would choose? We really do have a chance to accomplish this. How can I get $1 billion financially?
Musk’s attorneys also interpreted that final thought as evidence that Brockman was prioritizing his own wealth over the goals of the foundation. Steve Molo, Musk’s primary trial lawyer, took advantage of Brockman’s statement that his present ownership position in the firm is valued at nearly $30 billion to chastise him.
“Why didn’t you donate the $29 billion that you said you would be okay with to the charity?” Molo made a demand.
Brockman answered, “Look at what we accomplished.” The OpenAI charity has equity worth more than $150 billion. Since Elon left, we have put a lot of effort, blood, sweat, and tears into creating that.
Molo also focused on emails in which Brockman promised to give $100,000 to OpenAI—something he never accomplished. Ironically, the trial did not address Brockman’s $25 million donation to MAGA Inc., a SuperPAC that supports President Donald Trump, which was the highest donation of the 2025 election cycle.
Molo made fun of Brockman’s account of the heated meeting regarding his power over the firm, calling Musk “mean” to him and implying that Brockman was not as knowledgeable about the governance issues as Musk, a serial founder, was.
However, Brockman said that Musk was ignorant of AI. He testified that Musk dismissed an early presentation of the program that would eventually become ChatGPT, saying, “He did not and does not know AI.” “We didn’t anticipate that he would devote the necessary time to truly become proficient at it.”
According to Brockman, “the fact that Elon saw this very early version of the research, which really set all these things in motion, [and] didn’t recognize that spark—that was exactly the kind of thing that was critical to avoid happening in this environment.”
To raise $1 billion from Microsoft in 2019, OpenAI would establish a for-profit. Over the following four years, the business would raise a further $13 billion from the software behemoth, further solidifying its position as the top AI frontier lab. Additionally, it increased the assets owned by OpenAI, the nonprofit, and the wealth of the company’s executives and staff.
In the end, Musk filed his lawsuit in 2024 because of his fears that Altman and Brockman had taken advantage of him as a result of those arrangements. It is anticipated that the trial will go on until next week.