The federal trial over OpenAI’s origins put a roughly $852 billion private valuation and personal rivalries under the microscope, as Elon Musk’s 2024 lawsuit against Sam Altman and other founders played out in an Oakland courtroom in late April and early May 2026. Musk’s complaint, filed in August 2024, says he donated about $38 million between December 2015 and May 2017 to a nonprofit OpenAI and that those funds were used in ways that breached the organisation’s founding purpose. The case challenges OpenAI’s restructuring into for-profit affiliates, its commercial deals including the prominent Microsoft partnership, and seeks remedies such as leadership changes and redirecting some proceeds to the nonprofit arm. Courtroom schedules indicate the trial was expected to run two to three weeks, and Sam Altman was scheduled to testify later in the proceedings.
The courtroom proceedings in Oakland have done more than parse legal claims. They have turned a founding myth into a matter of public record, as competing accounts of how OpenAI became the near-trillion-dollar company were aired under oath. The dispute rests on whether the start-up that launched as a nonprofit in 2015 was steered into a commercial structure that enriched investors and partners while abandoning its original mission, according to the complaint filed by Elon Musk in August 2024.
The complaint centres on roughly $38 million that Musk says he donated between December 2015 and May 2017, and on the decisions that followed when OpenAI reorganised and formed for-profit affiliates. The suit challenges the company’s restructuring and its commercial arrangements, most notably the partnership with Microsoft, and asks a court to consider remedies including changes to OpenAI’s leadership and the redirection of some commercial proceeds back to the nonprofit arm. This filings and early testimony made those stakes plain to jurors and observers.
Courtroom days, testimony and the first witnesses
Jury selection began in Oakland under Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who presided over voir dire and then guided the trial into live testimony. Early days featured cross-examination of Musk himself and testimony from Jared Birchall, who manages Musk’s family office. Birchall was called to describe the specifics of Musk’s donations and related negotiations, and his appearance gave the jury a window into the private dealings that underlie the dispute.
On the stand, Musk described his for-profit companies as socially beneficial and conceded that his competing venture, xAI, had "partly" used OpenAI models to distil training data. That concession was probed by OpenAI’s counsel in cross-examination. OpenAI has characterised the lawsuit as sour grapes and said the case is an attempt to undercut the company’s growth while boosting Musk’s own competing business.
Those competing narratives were reinforced by the evidence introduced into the trial record.
The record includes private communications and internal documents that the complaint and defendants both rely on to tell opposing origin stories. Emails, texts and diary entries were submitted and cited by each side to frame early governance choices and the motivations of the founders. Those materials are now part of a public file that observers are poring over for clues about why the company pivoted from a nonprofit model to an arrangement that mixes philanthropic aims with commercial partnerships.
Valuation, fundraising and investor unease
The courtroom drama has coincided with heightened investor scrutiny of OpenAI’s business strategy as the company moves toward a possible public offering later in 2026. Several reports linked the trial to wider questions among backers about whether OpenAI’s shift toward enterprise software and developer tools can justify a near-$1 trillion private valuation. Analysts and some investors have pressed on the trade-off between consumer-facing growth from ChatGPT and the more predictable recurring revenue that enterprise contracts deliver.
A separate business analysis highlighted investor unease about the size and focus of recent private fundraising and product-strategy shifts. That report said OpenAI closed a very large round that cemented the roughly $852 billion private valuation, and that management has redrawn the product roadmap multiple times in recent months while competition from Anthropic and Google has intensified. The same piece quoted an early backer questioning whether attention on enterprise and code products distracts from ChatGPT’s consumer growth.
Readers should note that some claims in the record are single-sourced. One business analysis suggested OpenAI raised $122 billion in a recent private round, and that Anthropic may be closing the revenue-growth gap with OpenAI. Those particular points appear only in that separate analysis and aren't corroborated elsewhere in the public bundle of accounts.
The trial has also shone a light on the numbers Musk sought. Public reporting shows differences in the headline damages figures cited at various times during pretrial filings.
One account said Musk initially sought more than $100 billion in damages, while another quoted filings that put the request at more than $134 billion. Both figures are present in the public record as reported by different accounts and reflect evolving courtroom positions and pretrial rulings.
Beyond the headline valuations and damage figures, the proceedings are examining governance decisions from OpenAI’s early years and how founders and investors interpreted the organisation’s mission. The jury is hearing testimony designed to show the intentions and expectations of those who helped launch the project, and opposing lawyers are using the trial record to make different cases about whether the company kept faith with its nonprofit commitments.
For the technology sector, the case is notable not just for its monetary stakes but for the way it frames disputes about commercialisation, research openness and control over rapidly advancing models. Investors and competitors are watching closely, while the public documentation of private negotiations has altered familiar narratives about the origins of one of the world’s most valuable AI companies.
Sam Altman was scheduled to testify later in the proceedings, with the court expecting the trial to run two to three weeks as parties proceeded through multiple days of testimony.
This article was created with AI assistance.
