Asger Risom
A long-simmering feud between two of Silicon Valley’s most powerful figures is about to move into a courtroom.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said he is looking forward to questioning Elon Musk under oath as their legal dispute moves toward trial.
Altman made the comment in a post on X on Tuesday evening, writing that he was “really excited to get Elon under oath in a few months, Christmas in April!”
Legal fight heads to trial
The case stems from a lawsuit Musk filed in February 2024 against OpenAI and Altman, accusing them of misleading him into believing the company would remain a nonprofit.
Musk, one of OpenAI’s co-founders, has said he contributed about $38 million under that assumption. He claims OpenAI later abandoned its original mission as it pursued commercial partnerships and restructuring.
A California judge ruled in January that the case contained sufficient evidence to proceed, setting the stage for a trial scheduled for April.
Court filings and messaging practices
Altman also reshared a post by OpenAI’s chief security officer, Jason Kwon, calling it “concerning.” The post included screenshots from a court filing submitted by OpenAI’s attorneys.
According to that filing, Musk preferred communicating through messaging services such as Signal or XChat, with message retention settings of a week or less.
The filing was cited by OpenAI as part of its response to Musk’s allegations.
A feud fought in public
The lawsuit has unfolded alongside a highly visible exchange of insults on social media. Musk has repeatedly attacked OpenAI’s ChatGPT, warning followers not to use it and amplifying claims about alleged harms linked to the chatbot.
Altman has pushed back by criticising Tesla’s Autopilot system and questioning the safety and governance of Musk’s AI company, xAI.
xAI’s chatbot, Grok, has drawn criticism from regulators in multiple countries after reports that users generated nonconsensual sexualized images, including images involving minors.
What the court will be asked to decide
The April trial is expected to focus on OpenAI’s governance and whether its leadership breached commitments made during the company’s founding.
Central questions include Musk’s role as an early funder, the expectations he says were set around OpenAI’s nonprofit mission, and whether later commercial partnerships and restructuring violated those assurances.
The court will also weigh evidence around internal decision-making and communications, issues that both sides have already begun to highlight in public filings and social media exchanges.
Sources: Business Insider, court filings, X
