Musk and Altman head to trial

Jury selection began Monday in Oakland in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman over OpenAI’s move away from its nonprofit origins. (usnews.com) Musk says Altman and Brockman broke OpenAI’s founding promise by turning the lab into a profit-driven company after he helped launch it in 2015. OpenAI says the case is an attempt to slow a rival after Musk started xAI in 2023. (cbc.ca) (cnbc.com) The case is smaller than Musk first filed. On April 24, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed Musk’s fraud claims at his request and left breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment for trial. (usnews.com) Musk invested about $38 million in OpenAI between December 2015 and May 2017, according to the Associated Press. He had sought more than $100 billion at one stage, but now wants money directed to OpenAI’s charitable arm rather than to himself. (usnews.com) OpenAI is no longer the small nonprofit Musk backed. The company is valued at about $852 billion, and CNBC reported last week that it is targeting a potential fourth-quarter market debut. (usnews.com) (cnbc.com) Microsoft is also in the case because it became OpenAI’s biggest investor after Musk stopped funding the company. Musk is asking the court to unwind OpenAI’s for-profit restructuring and remove Altman and Brockman from leadership. (usnews.com) (cnbc.com) The trial is expected to run for weeks, with opening statements scheduled for Tuesday, April 28. Both Musk and Altman are expected to testify later in the proceedings. (usnews.com) (cbc.ca) The courtroom fight now turns on a narrower question than the public feud suggests: whether OpenAI’s current structure violated duties tied to the nonprofit it started as. (usnews.com)