Musk's OpenAI trial testimony unravels across seven self-inflicted wounds

Elon Musk spent a third day on the stand in his lawsuit seeking to block OpenAI’s conversion from nonprofit to public company, and the appearance went poorly. OpenAI’s counsel extracted concessions over objections from Musk’s own lawyer, surfaced documents that contradicted his testimony, and pulled xAI’s safety record into the proceeding despite efforts to exclude it. Musk also stumbled when pressed on calling OpenAI’s safety team ‘jackasses’ and admitted he didn’t know what safety cards were, even though xAI publishes them.

The credibility hits compounded: Musk insisted he never loses his temper moments before raising his voice at opposing counsel, and the judge agreed to hear arguments about his ties to Donald Trump that his lawyers had tried to keep out. His core claim is that Altman and OpenAI executives ‘stole a charity’ after taking $38 million in donations, conning him into seed-funding what was always meant to become an $800 billion enterprise.

OpenAI and Microsoft frame the suit as competitive sabotage, arguing Musk is using litigation to slow a rival that has outpaced xAI ahead of OpenAI’s planned late-2026 IPO. The trial’s outcome could determine whether Altman keeps his seat and whether OpenAI remains structurally constrained as a nonprofit.