\n<\/p>\n
In late August 2017, key figures at OpenAI (then a small nonprofit research lab) gathered to discuss how they would create a for-profit to commercialize its technology and raise the funds needed to realize AGI.<\/p>\n
Elon Musk was demanding full control of the company and had just given each of his co-founders a Tesla Model 3. CTO Greg Brockman said he saw that as way of buttering them up at a time when Musk and Sam Altman were vying to win support for their respective visions of the company\u2019s future. OpenAI\u2019s head of research, Ilya Sutskever, had commissioned a painting of a Tesla to give Musk during the meeting as a friendly gesture.<\/p>\n
The conversation didn\u2019t follow that mood: When Musk was told the others would not accede to his demand for control of the company, Brockman said he got angry and upset. He sat for several minutes thinking quietly. <\/p>\n
Then, in Brockman\u2019s telling, Musk said, \u201cI decline.\u201d The SpaceX and Tesla founder \u201cstood up and stormed around the table\u2026I thought he was going to hit me. He grabbed the painting and started to storm out of the room. And then he turned around and said, \u2018When will you be departing OpenAI?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Brockman and Sutskever didn\u2019t leave or commit to Musk\u2019s vision. Musk stopped his regular donations to the company\u2019s operating budget, and within six months, he would leave the board, though he paid for office space the company shared with Neuralink until 2020. <\/p>\n
As today\u2019s legal battle over the future of OpenAI proceeds, scrutiny has settled on a key period in 2017 when the organization\u2019s original co-founders disagreed about who would control its future, eventually bringing us Musk\u2019s lawsuit against his co-founders.<\/p>\n
We have yet to hear from Sam Altman, but OpenAI president Greg Brockman testified for two days, often referencing a personal journal that offers a rare insight into what it\u2019s like to be a 30-year-old tech executive in a pitched battle with Elon Musk.<\/p>\n
Techcrunch event<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA<\/span> \u201cIt\u2019s very painful,\u201d Brockman said of the publicity around the journal, which he called \u201cdeeply personal writings that were never meant for the world to see. [But] there\u2019s nothing in there I\u2019m ashamed of.\u201d<\/p>\n Cutthroat negotiations between startup founders are rarely shared so publicly, especially when a company becomes as world-changing as OpenAI. <\/p>\n We saw a recent taste of this rancor when OpenAI\u2019s lawyers shared a text message Musk sent to Brockman two days before the trial began: \u201cBy the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be.\u201d<\/p>\n The jury won\u2019t see that note, but Musk\u2019s lawyers have done their best to realize its spirit. They are trying to show the court that Altman and Brockman \u201cstole a charity,\u201d while OpenAI\u2019s legal team tries to show that Musk had the exact same plan in mind.<\/p>\n The inciting incident for all of this was when an OpenAI model defeated the top human player in the video game DOTA II. Brockman said that convinced everyone in the organization that compute was the key resource to create powerful AI tools, but that fundraising purely as a nonprofit would be insufficient.<\/p>\n That led to talks about a for-profit subsidiary, of which Musk wanted \u201cunequivocal\u201d control, at least at the start. The other founders proposed equal shares, and perhaps more equity commensurate with a cash investment. Another idea on the table was somehow connecting OpenAI to Tesla\u2019s AI work. Shivon Zilis, an OpenAI advisor who acted as a go-between for Musk and the team there, said there were more than 20 variations on the plan.<\/p>\n But when the other founders wouldn\u2019t give Musk control, their partnership unraveled.<\/p>\n \u201cIt should not be the case that there exists one person with full and absolute control over OpenAI,\u201d Brockman testified. Brockman and Sutskever discussed a plan to kick Elon off OpenAI\u2019s board in order to move forward, resulting in November 2017 journal entries that Musk\u2019s lawyers have focused on.<\/p>\n \u2018[C]an\u2019t see us turning this into a for-profit without a very nasty fight,\u201d Brockman wrote. \u201c[I\u2019m] just thinking about the office and we\u2019re in the office. and his story will correctly be that we weren\u2019t honest with him in the end about still wanting to do the for profit just without him\u2026.btw another realization from this is that it\u2019d be wrong to steal the non-profit from him. to convert to a b-corp without him. that\u2019d be pretty morally bankrupt. and he\u2019s really not an idiot.\u201d<\/p>\n That \u201csteal the non-profit\u201d line may seem damning, but the context, according to Brockman, was whether or not to try and toss Musk off the board. They ultimately did not do that. Musk left the board voluntarily in February 2018, concluding that \u201cOpenAI is on a path of certain failure,\u201d saying he planned to focus more on AI at Tesla. <\/p>\n Brockman described his reflections as an effort to determine whether he would be satisfied with his work life. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is the only chance we have to get out from Elon,\u201d he wrote during the talks. \u201cIs he the \u2018glorious leader\u2019 that I would pick? We truly have a chance to make this happen. Financially what will take me to $1B?\u201d<\/p>\n That last reflection was also seized on by Musk\u2019s lawyers as a sign that Brockman was thinking more about his personal wealth than the nonprofit\u2019s mission. Brockman said his current stake in the company is worth almost $30 billion, which became an opportunity for Steve Molo, the main trial attorney for Musk, to berate him.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you take the $29 billion more than the billion you said you would be good with, and donate that to the charity?\u201d Molo demanded. <\/p>\n \u201cLook at what we accomplished,\u201d Brockman replied. \u201cThe OpenAI nonprofit has over $150 billion of OpenAI equity value. That is something we have built through hard work, blood, sweat, and tears, all this time since Elon has left.\u201d<\/p>\n Molo also dwelt on emails from where Brockman said he will donate $100,000 to OpenAI, something he never did. Ironically, Brockman might be best known to the public for making the largest donation of the 2025 political cycle, $25 million given to MAGA Inc., a SuperPAC supporting President Donald Trump, but that didn\u2019t come up in the trial. <\/p>\n Molo did mock Brockman\u2019s description of the charged meeting around his control of the company as Musk being \u201cmean\u201d to Brockman, and suggested that Brockman didn\u2019t understand the governance issues the way Musk, a serial founder, did. <\/p>\n Brockman, though, said Musk didn\u2019t understand AI. \u201cHe did not and does not know AI,\u201d he testified, describing Musk dismissing an early demonstration of the software that would become ChatGPT. \u201cWe did not think he was going to spend the time required to actually get good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that Elon saw this very early version of the research, that really set all these things in motion, [and] didn\u2019t recognize that spark \u2014 that was exactly the kind of thing that was critical to avoid happening in this environment,\u201d Brockman said.<\/p>\n In 2019, OpenAI would create a for-profit and use it to raise $1 billion from Microsoft. The company would raise a further $13 billion from the software giant over the next four years, fueling its rise as the leading AI frontier lab. It also fueled the net worth of the company\u2019s executives and employees, as well as the assets held by OpenAI the nonprofit.<\/p>\n And ultimately, those deals fueled Musk\u2019s suspicions that Altman and Brockman got one over on him, leading him to file his suit in 2024. The trial is expected to continue through next week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n