OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified for four hours in the Musk trial, denying he promised to keep the company nonprofit and accusing Musk of trying to destroy it.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified for approximately four hours on May 12 in the federal trial over Elon Musk's claims against the company, denying that he ever promised Musk that OpenAI would remain a nonprofit and asserting that Musk himself "tried to kill" the organization [1]. Altman told the court that Musk's efforts to destroy the company included launching a competing AI firm and attempting to recruit OpenAI personnel away from the organization [1].
The testimony came during the ongoing bench trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, sitting in Oakland, where Musk has sued Altman and OpenAI alleging breach of a founding agreement to operate as a nonprofit for the benefit of humanity [1]. Musk's attorney, Steven Molo, conducted the cross-examination, during which Altman acknowledged that his views of Musk had changed substantially over time [1]. Molo introduced a 2023 text message in which Altman credited Musk with making OpenAI possible, using the exchange to press on the credibility of Altman's current characterizations of the relationship [1].
The trial has also produced a stream of unsealed internal communications. Text messages and emails entered into evidence revealed board-level tensions over OpenAI's corporate structure dating to 2017 and 2018, a period when the company was still defining the boundaries between its nonprofit mission and any future commercial operation [1]. Those records give the court a contemporaneous record of the founding-era intent that sits at the center of Musk's contract and charitable-trust claims.
Altman's testimony carries outsized weight because the entire case turns on what the founders understood themselves to have agreed to. His acknowledgment of changed views on Musk, placed alongside the 2023 text crediting Musk's role, gives the court a direct credibility question: whether Altman's current account of founding-era promises reflects the record or reflects the litigation posture of a defendant. The unsealed communications deepen that inquiry by providing documentary context that neither side fully controls.
The trial is expected to continue in the days following Altman's appearance, with additional witnesses and exhibits still to come [1]. The outcome will carry consequences not only for the parties but for the legal framework governing nonprofit-to-for-profit conversions in the AI sector, where several organizations face analogous structural questions.