OpenAI trial – A three-week federal trial in Oakland put Elon Musk and OpenAI’s leadership into direct conflict over whether the ChatGPT maker broke faith with its nonprofit origins—while the judge insisted that wealth wouldn’t buy special treatment.
When nine jurors walked into a federal courtroom in Oakland, they weren’t just weighing claims about OpenAI’s structure.. For three weeks. they watched a collision of tech titans—complete with security workarounds. crowd-control in hallways. and relentless questions about how many billions the people on the stand were actually worth.
The trial is now heading into deliberations Monday morning. after a case that Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers famously distilled as “Billionaires versus billionaires.” The courtroom drama centered on OpenAI. the maker of ChatGPT. and on Elon Musk’s allegation that the company betrayed its nonprofit roots when it created a for-profit arm and took money from outside investors. including Microsoft.. OpenAI and Microsoft counter that OpenAI is still controlled by a nonprofit. that Musk agreed to the need for outside capital. and that Musk is mounting a pressure campaign because he owns a rival startup. xAI.
On the witness stand, the dispute became inseparable from the scale of wealth.. During the second week of testimony. Steven Molo. a lawyer for Musk. pressed OpenAI President Greg Brockman about whether Brockman’s stake in the organization was worth $20 billion.. Brockman testified that it was correct, and Molo pressed again.
“It may be closer to $30 billion, correct?” Molo asked.
“I think that may be true, yes,” Brockman responded.
Molo later returned to the $30 billion figure in closing arguments, portraying it as evidence of unearned wealth and accusing Brockman and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman of enriching themselves at the expense of what Musk said was meant to be a charity dedicated to ensuring AI benefits humanity.
“Greg Brockman never invested a nickel,” Molo told the jury.
OpenAI’s lawyer, Bill Savitt, did not try to diminish the numbers. “You look at these numbers and, wow, they’re big numbers!” he told jurors in closing arguments, adding that if OpenAI continued on its current path, the equity would be “just a crazy amount of money.”
Savitt framed that outcome differently, arguing Brockman’s gains came through risk and work rather than charity.
“In 2019, when Greg Brockman received his equity, no one had any idea that the equity would be worth anything,” Savitt said. “Only with 20/20 hindsight do we know that this was the rare organization that succeeded.”
The men and women watching included the kind of high-priced legal teams that often move with billionaire momentum.. Inside and outside the building, security staff cleared the way when a billionaire sought passage through public hallways or elevators.. Some witnesses even used fancy butt cushions to protect themselves from the hard wooden benches.
The trial also made clear who the public sees on the Forbes lists: Musk at $814 billion; OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever at $7 billion; Altman at $3.4 billion; OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor at $2.5 billion; and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at $1.3 billion.. Witnesses also named other billionaires tied to OpenAI’s past. including Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. valued at $9.9 billion. and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. valued at $2.7 billion. per Forbes.
Outside the courthouse, anti-billionaire demonstrators showed up most days with props aimed at Musk, Altman, or both.. Faces appeared on punching bags and lawn signs. and an inflatable Musk doll—designed to include a Nazi salute—referenced a gesture Musk made at a rally last year.. One protester who gave only the name Keith arrived with a Musk mask. a cutout of a Tesla Cybertruck. and a bag labeled “ketamine. ” a reference to Musk’s acknowledged past use of the drug.. Musk has said he took ketamine years ago with a prescription.
“He just acted progressively crazier and crazier and more right-wing and more racist and really started to piss me off,” Keith said. He told the court he drove from Los Angeles to Oakland for the protest.
But Keith said he wasn’t backing OpenAI or Microsoft either, saying, “I tend to think that a billionaire didn’t come about it ethically.”
Even the crowds had their own split reality.. Musk admirers appeared inside the courthouse too. including a group of Stanford University undergraduates who woke up early on a Wednesday because they had no class to come watch Musk testify.. One Musk fan caused a disturbance when she appeared to take a photo. and the judge reprimanded her for violating court rules.. The same person audibly agreed with Musk as he answered questions. saying “yeah” during some of his responses from the public section.
While Musk brought the lawsuit, he did not stay for closing statements Thursday.. Instead, he left to join President Donald Trump for a state visit to China.. His absence came with an apology to the jury from Molo. and Musk left the country even though he was still subject to recall as a witness during the final week.
Judge Rogers’ approach to the case—meant to blunt the advantage that wealth can sometimes bring—ran through many of the trial’s details.. Before proceedings began. she pledged “not to allow the concentration of wealth to influence the court’s operations. ” writing that high-profile parties and witnesses should not receive “special privileges.” During the trial. she held to that pledge with notable limits: she kept special entry arrangements largely tied to threats against Altman and Musk.
Both have faced threats against their lives, and the judge allowed them to enter the building through a back door, avoiding the gauntlet of cameras and crowds—though they still had to pass through security checks like everyone else, and they were photographed doing so.
The judge also rejected a procedural request over courtroom audio.. During the second week. Musk’s lawyers asked to have audio turned off during testimony from Shivon Zilis. described as a longtime Musk adviser. the mother of four of his children. and his romantic partner.. Musk’s attorneys argued the live broadcast on YouTube posed security concerns. while OpenAI’s lawyers said the feed would not matter from a security standpoint.. Gonzalez Rogers ruled against cutting off the live feed, and Zilis’ testimony proceeded.
Outside observers said the judge ran a tight courtroom. Richard Marcus, a law professor at the University of California College of the Law in San Francisco, who listened to the live YouTube audio feed, said he was impressed by Gonzalez Rogers’ handling of exhibits and objections.
“She was definitely running that courtroom,” Marcus said.
The judge’s focus on jurors—ordinary people rather than elites—came through as the trial moved forward. She heaped praise on the jurors and alluded to the contrast between them and the billionaire witnesses and litigants.
“We have regular people judge the credibility of witnesses,” she told the jury Tuesday, noting it was Juror Appreciation Week in California.
Bracy, the CEO of TechEquity and an observer of the trial, said it offered something rare in a system shaped by wealth.
“It does give you some faith in the judicial system — that it maybe is the one place left in the country that is equalizing on some level,” she said.
Her organization is part of Eyes on OpenAI. a coalition that last year urged California Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate OpenAI’s restructuring for nonprofit compliance.. Bonta said in October that he had investigated and secured concessions from OpenAI. including a pledge that it will remain in California. before signing off on the restructuring.
But now the jury’s deliberations could take the case in a different direction, with Bracy warning that jurors might conclude the restructuring breached charitable obligations.
“If I were them, I’d be feeling extremely powerful,” Bracy said. “They’re being treated like kings and queens in the presence of, you know, who the rest of the world treats like kings and queens.”
What happens after the jury decides is still uncertain.. It’s not clear what would follow if jurors find that OpenAI and Microsoft acted wrongly in the restructuring and if Gonzalez Rogers accepts the verdict.. She has scheduled a hearing Monday to begin considering options for remedies while deliberations proceed on liability questions.
Musk has asked for a permanent injunction to “honor the original charter commitments on which the charity was founded,” and also for an order removing Altman and Brockman from OpenAI.
OpenAI Elon Musk Sam Altman Microsoft nonprofit ChatGPT federal court jury deliberations Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers Oakland xAI