OpenAI on Musk: "Motivated by jealousy

As the Musk v. Altman trial enters its second week in Oakland, attention has turned to a post on OpenAI's website titled "The truth about Elon Musk and OpenAI", in which the company defends itself against the lawsuit in unusually personal terms.

"Motivated by jealousy, regret for walking away from OpenAI and a desire to derail a competing AI company, Elon has spent years harassing OpenAI through baseless lawsuits and public attacks," the company writes.

OpenAI also claims that Musk was not acting alone. The post refers to reports of a "smear campaign headed by Elon and his intermediaries" and says there is evidence that "Elon coordinated with Mark Zuckerberg in repeated attempts to undermine OpenAI's mission".

The main part of the response challenges Musk's central claim that the company left behind its non-profit roots:

"OpenAI has always been, and still is to this very day, governed by a nonprofit dedicated to the same mission of creating AGI that benefits all of humanity," the company writes.

The OpenAI Foundation is now valued at over $180 billion. It has committed $25 billion to speeding up health breakthroughs, curing diseases, and addressing risks from advanced AI. In 2026, the Foundation plans to invest at least $1 billion in research on issues like Alzheimer's.

The post then shares OpenAI's view of the events in 2017. According to the company, both sides agreed that creating a for-profit branch was necessary to raise enough money for their mission. The disagreement, they say, was about who would have control:

Elon, however, demanded full control of OpenAI, and even wanted to merge it into Tesla (he would later merge his for-profit AI company, xAI, into SpaceX). When we wouldn't agree to his terms, he walked away and told us we had a '0% chance' of success.

OpenAI says Musk's $38 million donation to the non-profit was "spent exactly as intended and in service of the mission". However, they note, "Despite claiming and receiving a tax deduction for this donation, he's now asking the court to treat it as an investment that entitles him to significant ownership of OpenAI."

The post comes into focus during a difficult first week for Musk in court. Over three days of testimony in Oakland, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO admitted that his AI company, xAI, used OpenAI's models to train its own. He described this process, called distilling, as "standard practice to use other AIs to validate your AI". During cross-examination, it was also revealed that in February 2025, Musk led an investor group that offered to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion, but Sam Altman immediately rejected the offer.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers also had a disagreement with Musk, criticizing him for public statements made during the trial. "I suspect there's plenty of people who don't want to put the future of humanity in Mr. Musk's hands," she said in court, referring to xAI. The judge has since divided the trial into two phases: a liability phase that should end by May 21, and a remedies phase to follow. The jury's verdict will be advisory, and Gonzalez Rogers will make the final decision.

Musk is seeking up to $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, which is named as a co-defendant. He is also asking the court to remove Altman and president Greg Brockman from OpenAI's board and reverse the company's for-profit conversion. Microsoft's lead attorney has argued that the lawsuit is too late, pointing to a 2020 post on X where Musk wrote that "OpenAI is essentially captured by Microsoft". The lawyer said this shows Musk knew about the relationship years before filing.