OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified May 12 in Oakland federal court, defending the company's for-profit conversion and accusing Musk of seeking control of OpenAI.
Sam Altman testified for approximately four hours in federal court in Oakland on May 12, defending OpenAI's transition to a for-profit structure and directly rejecting plaintiff Elon Musk's characterization of the move as theft of a charitable organization [1]. Altman told the court that raising the capital required to develop safe artificial intelligence made the structural conversion necessary, and that the nonprofit model had been exhausted as a viable funding vehicle [2]. He also testified that Musk had sought control of OpenAI and had attempted to merge the organization with Tesla, a claim that cuts against Musk's framing of himself as a principled defender of the nonprofit's founding mission [1].
The testimony came during trial in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, in a lawsuit Musk filed against Altman and OpenAI alleging, among other claims, that the company's conversion betrayed its original charitable purpose [1]. Musk's counsel, Steven Molo, conducted a lengthy cross-examination targeting Altman's credibility, pressing him on statements made by Dario Amodei, a former OpenAI researcher who co-founded Anthropic, as well as statements attributed to former board members and the circumstances of Altman's brief removal as CEO in 2023 [2]. Altman characterized the nonprofit structure in its prior form as something that had been "left for dead" before the conversion process began [2].
The substantive stakes are significant. The central legal question before the jury is whether OpenAI breached its fiduciary duty to its charitable mission by restructuring in a way that shifts control and financial benefit toward private investors [3]. Altman's testimony is the trial's primary direct evidence on that question, and his account of Musk's conduct, including the alleged Tesla merger overture, serves as the defense's counter-narrative to Musk's portrayal of the conversion as self-dealing by OpenAI's leadership [1]. The AI safety governance dimensions of the testimony also surfaced, with Altman maintaining that the structural change was itself a precondition for responsible development [3].
The trial is expected to continue with additional witness testimony. Musk's legal team has indicated it intends to further contest Altman's account through documentary evidence and corroborating witnesses. Any verdict will carry consequences well beyond this dispute, as OpenAI's ability to complete its for-profit conversion may hinge directly on the jury's findings regarding the organization's fidelity to its founding charitable purpose [3].