Former OpenAI tech chief testifies Sam Altman 'sowed chaos and distrust'

OpenAI’s courtroom fight with Elon Musk is turning into something more revealing than a founder grudge match. It is becoming a public audit of how the most important AI lab in the world was actually run. And this week, that audit got personal. The new jolt came on May 6, when former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati’s videotaped testimony was played in federal court in Oakland. Murati said Sam Altman created “chaos” and distrust among senior leaders, gave different people different versions of the truth, and made it harder for her to do her job. Reuters’ account tied that testimony directly to the same leadership concerns that exploded into Altman’s brief ouster in November 2023. ### What case is this, exactly? This is Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, Altman, and Greg Brockman over OpenAI’s shift from its original nonprofit structure toward a profit-seeking one. Musk’s core claim is that OpenAI abandoned the mission he says he backed in the early days — building AI for humanity rather than for commercial gain. The trial started in late April 2026 and has become a venue for airing years of internal emails, board fights, and leadership complaints. ### Why does Murati’s testimony matter so much? Because Murati was not some outside critic. She was OpenAI’s chief technology officer and, for a moment during the 2023 crisis, interim CEO. So when she says Altman fostered deception and internal distrust, that lands as insider testimony about how the company functioned at the top — not just a legal talking point. Reuters and other coverage framed her comments as reinforcing the old board’s claim that Altman had not been consistently candid. ### What was the specific allegation? Murati’s basic point was that Altman sometimes told different executives different things, which left senior leadership unsure what was real and who knew what. That sounds soft, but in a company building frontier AI systems, information control is power. If the top team does not trust the CEO’s version of events, safety calls, product launches, fundraising, and board oversight all get messier at once. ### How does Greg Brockman fit into this? Brockman’s testimony filled in the older founder drama from the other side. Reuters’ May 5 coverage said he testified that Musk had once supported turning OpenAI into a for-profit company, which undercuts part of Musk’s current case. So the courtroom now has two overlapping stories — one about whether OpenAI broke faith with its founding mission, and another about whether Altman’s internal leadership style damaged governance from within. ### Why are investors watching this so closely? Because this is not just about who said what in 2023. It is about whether OpenAI’s structure can hold together under huge capital demands. SoftBank said in February that its cumulative OpenAI investment is expected to reach $64.6 billion for roughly a 13% ownership stake. On May 7, SoftBank shares jumped sharply as Japanese markets reopened and investors leaned into the AI trade, with OpenAI exposure part of the story. ### So is this bad for OpenAI’s valuation? Not automatically — but it complicates the story. A private-company stake is not just a bet on revenue growth. It is also a bet that the governance, legal structure, and decision-making process will survive stress. This trial is exposing exactly the kind of thing investors usually have to infer from whispers: board fractures, executive mistrust, and unresolved questions about who really controlled the company during key moments. That can widen the gap between a headline valuation and what a stake is actually worth in practice. ### What is the real takeaway here? The big story is not merely that a former executive accused Altman of sowing chaos. It is that OpenAI’s internal governance — the plumbing underneath the AI boom — is being examined in public while tens of billions of dollars are still pouring in. That is rare. And once that kind of testimony is on the record, employees, investors, and partners have to price the company as both an AI leader and a governance risk. ### Bottom line Murati’s testimony matters because it turns OpenAI’s old boardroom crisis into current evidence. The question now is not just whether OpenAI can build the future fastest. It is whether the structure around Sam Altman can carry that future without breaking first.