Musk’s OpenAI Trial: Rehashing an Old Friendship Under Oath

Elon Musk has never been shy about telling stories. He’s done it in interviews, on podcasts, and in Walter Isaacson’s biography. But Tuesday was different. For the first time, he told one of his favorite anecdotes under oath.

This is the OpenAI trial, where Musk is suing the company he co-founded in 2015. The core of his case? That OpenAI has abandoned its original nonprofit mission in favor of profit, and that it’s now too cozy with Microsoft. But the courtroom drama so far feels less like a legal battle and more like a therapy session for a bruised ego.

Musk took the stand and recounted the founding story: how he and Sam Altman met, bonded over AI safety concerns, and decided to create a counterweight to Google’s DeepMind. He talked about the early days, the late-night debates, the shared vision. It’s a story he’s told before—in Isaacson’s book, in interviews, in public talks. But hearing it in a federal courtroom, with a judge taking notes, gives it a different weight.

The problem is, none of this is really new. Musk’s narrative has been consistent: he was the visionary, Altman was the executor, and somewhere along the line, things went wrong. The legal question is whether OpenAI breached its founding agreement or committed fraud. The emotional question is whether Musk feels betrayed.

I’ve followed this case from the sidelines, and I can’t shake the feeling that Musk’s real grievance isn’t about contracts or nonprofit status. It’s about friendship. He and Altman were once close. They talked about saving humanity from rogue AI. Now they’re on opposite sides of a courtroom, and Musk seems to want the world to know that he was right all along.

The trial is still ongoing, and there will be more testimony from Altman, from Microsoft executives, from OpenAI board members. But Musk’s opening act has already set the tone: this is personal. And that might be the most honest thing about the whole proceeding.