Elon Musk finally took the stand in his ongoing legal battle with OpenAI, and if you’ve followed his public spats over the years, you already know the gist. Tuesday marked the first time he told this particular story under oath — the one about how he and Sam Altman used to be friends, how OpenAI started as a noble counterweight to Google’s AI dominance, and how things went sideways when the non-profit turned into a for-profit juggernaut.
For anyone who read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk or watched any of the interviews he’s given in the past few years, the testimony felt like a greatest hits reel. The same grievances, the same timeline, the same sense of personal betrayal. But hearing it in a courtroom, with a judge and opposing counsel watching, adds a layer of consequence that a podcast interview never has.
Musk’s version of events goes like this: He and Altman bonded over a shared fear that Google — specifically DeepMind — would get to artificial general intelligence first and do something reckless with it. They founded OpenAI in 2015 as a non-profit to keep AGI development open and safe. Musk poured in millions, recruited top talent, and lent his name and credibility. Then, somewhere along the way, Altman and the board decided to pivot toward a for-profit model, chasing revenue and partnerships with Microsoft. Musk felt blindsided, then betrayed.
The counter-narrative from OpenAI’s legal team is that Musk was never as central as he claims. They’ve pointed to his erratic involvement, his desire to merge OpenAI into Tesla, and his eventual departure after failing to secure majority control. In their telling, Musk wanted to own the AGI project, not just fund it. When he couldn’t, he walked away and now wants to litigate the breakup retroactively.
What struck me about Tuesday’s testimony wasn’t so much the content as the tone. Musk seemed genuinely frustrated, almost wounded, as he described the falling out. This is a guy who has been sued by the SEC, roasted by regulators, and attacked by short sellers — but this case feels personal in a different way. It’s not about money or stock price. It’s about a friendship that soured and a vision that got hijacked, at least in his mind.
The trial is far from over, and there’s a lot of evidence yet to be presented. But watching Musk relitigate an old friendship on the stand, I couldn’t shake the feeling that both sides are probably right about some things and wrong about others. OpenAI did pivot hard from its original non-profit mission. Musk did have a history of wanting to pull projects toward Tesla. The truth is probably somewhere in the messy middle.
Still, it’s a hell of a story to watch unfold in real time. And for once, the court of public opinion isn’t the only one listening.
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