OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) 鈥� OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the witness stand Tuesday to defend his business record in pitting him against Elon Musk, rebutting testimony that disparaged his leadership at a pivotal time for the ChatGPT maker.
Musk, the world鈥檚 richest man, is seeking Altman鈥檚 ouster from the company leadership as part of a civil lawsuit accusing him of betraying their shared vision for . Since its start as a nonprofit funded primarily by Musk, OpenAI has now valued at $852 billion.
In the third week of the trial in a federal courthouse in Oakland, California, neither of the tech titans has emerged as an overly sympathetic character. But nobody has more to lose than Altman.
Even if Musk loses the case, has invited further scrutiny of Altman鈥檚 leadership at a crucial time for the company and its competition with Musk鈥檚 own AI firm and another rival, Anthropic, formed by a group of seven ex-OpenAI leaders. All three firms are moving toward planned initial public offerings that are expected to be some of the largest ever.
Under a barrage of questions by a lawyer for Musk, Altman said he did not agree with trial testimony that depicted him as dishonest.
鈥淚 believe I am an honest and trustworthy businessperson,鈥� Altman said.
A jury that鈥檚 already heard about Altman鈥檚 character from a parade of his former allies and adversaries will ultimately decide the verdict. But the repercussions could reverberate widely.
鈥淭his is not looking good for any of them, and I think that that鈥檚 a little bit unfortunate for the AI industry at a time when the public perception of AI is quite negative and seems to be getting worse,鈥� said Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University鈥檚 Tech Policy Institute.
Testimony about Altman has been a font of social media memes
The lawsuit accuses Altman and his top lieutenant, Greg Brockman, of double-crossing Musk by straying from the San Francisco company鈥檚 founding mission to be an altruistic steward of a revolutionary technology. The lawsuit alleges they shifted into a moneymaking mode behind his back. Musk is seeking an unspecified amount of money to be paid to fund the altruistic efforts of OpenAI鈥檚 charitable arm.
While Musk, the head of SpaceX, Tesla and a slew of other companies, was well known by the San Francisco Bay Area jury pool, fewer knew who Altman was before the start of the trial, even if they were familiar with ChatGPT.
Since the start of the trial, testimony about Altman鈥檚 turbulent tenure at OpenAI has become prime fodder for internet jokes. One piece of evidence that has inspired countless memes was a text exchange between Altman and a company officer, Mira Murati, in 2023 during his short-lived , when Altman asked if things were moving 鈥渄irectionally good or bad鈥� and she wrote back: 鈥淪am this is very bad.鈥�
Jurors have heard from witnesses including OpenAI ex-board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, who spoke about the decision to fire Altman in 2023 before they were themselves ousted from the board when Altman returned to his role.
In video testimony last week, Toner said a starting point for the decision to oust Altman was when OpenAI , a respected AI scientist, reached out to confide some of his own concerns.
鈥淎 phrase we used was 鈥榓 pattern of behavior,鈥� so no one single cause,鈥� Toner said. 鈥淭he pattern of behavior related to his honesty and candor, his resistance of board oversight.鈥�
Sutskever was instrumental in the to oust Altman but later said he regretted his role in the shakeup. In his own testimony Monday, Sutskever confirmed that he wrote a 2023 memo to OpenAI鈥檚 board that characterized Altman as pitting his executives against one another and exhibiting a 鈥渃onsistent pattern of lying鈥� that was causing a loss of trust and productivity.
Altman has cast Musk as bent on control of OpenAI
The trial has carried risks for Musk’s reputation as well. Sutskever testified to his early admiration for Musk as an entrepreneur but said that once they were working together as co-founders, Musk’s push for a controlling stake in the startup 鈥渏ust felt aggressive to me.鈥�
OpenAI has brushed off Musk鈥檚 allegations as an unfounded case of sour grapes that鈥檚 aimed at undercutting its rapid growth and bolstering Musk鈥檚 own xAI, now part of SpaceX.
Altman and Musk both vied to be OpenAI’s CEO in its early years. In his testimony Tuesday, Altman said he had concerns about Musk鈥檚 attempts to gain more control over OpenAI, which was aiming to safely build a better-than-human form of AI called .
鈥淧art of the reason we started OpenAI is we didn鈥檛 think AGI could be under the control of any one person, no matter how good their intents are,” Altman said.
He described what he called a 鈥減articularly hair-raising moment when my co-founders asked Mr. Musk about, well, 鈥業f you have control, what happens when you die?鈥欌��
Altman said Musk鈥檚 response was that maybe 鈥渃ontrol of OpenAI should pass to my children.鈥� Altman said he did not feel comfortable with that.
Altman said Musk was known to be 鈥渇airly mercurial鈥� and only trusted himself to make decisions. He said Musk made repeated attempts to have his car company Tesla absorb OpenAI, a proposal Altman said would not have aligned with OpenAI鈥檚 mission.
Despite Musk’s claims in the lawsuit about a violation of the nonprofit’s purpose, Altman testified that OpenAI has ended up creating 鈥渢hrough a ton of hard work, this extremely large charity.鈥�
Near the end of his testimony, Altman said he had thought incredibly highly of Musk during his early involvement with OpenAI, before things turned sour.
鈥淚 felt like he had abandoned us, not come through on his promises, put the company in a very difficult place, jeopardized the mission, didn鈥檛 really care about the things I thought he cared about,鈥� Altman said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been an extremely painful thing for me … to have someone that I respected so much not acknowledge that and continue to publicly attack us.”
He attributed Musk’s leaving OpenAI and the ongoing conflicts to “jealousy, as we got more and more successful, in trying to beat us down as he was starting a competitor.鈥�
____
O’Brien contributed from Providence, Rhode Island.
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
